


Hunter x Hunter Shorts and Prompts

by agent_cupcake



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate universe - Mafia, Alternate uses for bungee gum, Alternative Universe - FBI, Angst, Blackmail, Blindfolds, Blow Jobs, Branding, Choking, Coercion, Creepy, Cunnilingus, Daddy Kink, Declarations Of Love, Dirty Talk, Double Penetration, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Consent, Edgeplay, Emotional Manipulation, Erotic Electrostimulation, Eye Gouging, F/M, Facials, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Frottage, Gags, Handcuffs, Hero Worship, Honeymoon, Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, Innocence, Insomnia, Kidnapping, Love Bites, Love/Hate, Maid Reader, Mild Gore, Mind Control, Minor Violence, Mirror Sex, Mistletoe, Non-Consensual Bondage, Orgasm Denial, Overstimulation, Panic Attacks, Possessive Behavior, Pregnancy, Prompt Fic, Public Blow Jobs, Reader-Insert, Romance, Sex Toys, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Spanking, Stalking, Threesome - F/M/M, Tumblr Prompt, Unhealthy Relationships, Valentine's Day, Vampire Hisoka, Vampire Illumi, Wall Sex, Weddings, Whipping, Yandere, thigh riding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2019-09-12 04:00:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 98
Words: 224,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16865743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_cupcake/pseuds/agent_cupcake
Summary: Hunter x Hunter Reader Insert Requests Crossposted from my tumblr agent-cupcake





	1. Main Four + Shy Kisses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder: Gon and Killua are aged up whenever I write about them

Kurapika’s eyes were wide when they met yours, his cheeks flushed ever so slightly. You could see hesitation in that lovely gray, feel it in the space between you, crackling with an exciting energy.

Out there, he was dangerous and cold, an unbreakable force wielding chains and fueled by vengeance. In here, however, he was just a boy. Your friend.

Not that you felt particularly friendly, now. Your lips quirked into a shy smile, stomach flipping as you got up the confidence to say it, hoping and praying that you were right, that he wanted this, too.

“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” you asked, breaking the charged quiet.

Kurapika blinked, his breath audibly catching. For a second, a spike of fear hit you, worry that you’d miss-read all the signs and made a mistake in asking him. As much as you wanted to ruin your friendship, it wasn’t in the way of driving him from you in fear.

Then that moment of uncertainty ended, and he closed the space between you.

Kurapika’s lips were warm, slightly chapped, pressed gently to yours without any aggression or haste. It wasn’t the passion fueled frenzy of romance novels or even of lovers, but the sweet and hesitant expression of a true and tender affection. It was beautiful. Perfect.

As quickly as it’d happened, it was over. Kurapika pulled away, leaving your lips tingling and cheeks warm. Your eyes opened, although you weren’t sure when you’d closed them, to meet his.

Wide, bright, filled with a million different emotions that he normally kept hidden. You smiled with rapture at the sight, heart swelling with adoration.

“Again,” you breathed, wishing right then to never again be without the touch of his lips to yours.

 

* * *

 

 

“I already know the way the world works, I don’t need some pompous old man to tell me that,” Leorio scoffed, his rant about his medical professor having gotten him all worked up, drawing stares from those around you as you wanted towards your favorite cafe. Leorio didn’t notice, or perhaps just didn’t care, continuing on,

“It always comes back to money, but he acts like the poor chose to be poor! As if parents allow their kids to die when they can’t afford the proper treatment. It takes everything in me not to pull him close and-”

“Leorio,” you interrupted loudly, finding it hard to stifle a smile. Not at his complaints, but at his beautiful and kind heart, hidden behind that irritable tone. Unfortunately, his rant was making his face go red, which was always a bad sign.

“Eh?” Leorio asked, pulled from his growing anger. You put on a serious act, motioning for him to lean down so you could whisper something in his ear. Suddenly worried, he did so, the two of you stopping.

You went all out, cupping your hand and even brushing your lips close to his ear. He didn’t expect you to plant a kiss on his cheek, instead, making a little ‘mwah’ sound. It felt a lip gloss stain, turning his cheeks red for a different reason as he straightened out.

Leorio looked down at you, slightly disgruntled at your big, self-satisfied smile.

“What was that for?” he asked, far more indignant than upset as he wiped away the glossy mark.

“Because I love you,” you said simply. Leorio’s eyes widened before softening, then they narrowed.

“Sweet words won’t save you from my revenge,” he warned you, over-dramatic as always. You laughed, taking his hand as you continued walking.

“I’d be disappointed if they did.”

 

* * *

 

 

It was late, past dusk, and the woods were dark and still. Gon had drawn you out here with the promise of something beautiful. He hadn’t said the word date, but you couldn’t push away the hopeful idea that it was. That he’d confirm your desperate hope that he was as infatuated with you as you were with him.

“It’s right here,” he told you, although you didn’t see anything. Not even his face, the darkness kept you from seeing whatever expression he wore. Your stomach buzzed hopefully with nervous anticipation.

“What is it?” you asked, wondering if he felt as warm as you did.

“Come see,” Gon said enthusiastically, pushing aside some foliage for you to pass through.  

What you saw as you entered the clearing made you pause.

Flowers, hundreds of them, grew among the grass. It was dark, but they didn’t need the light of the sun or moon to be seen. They glowed, lighting up the whole clearing as bright as any lantern could. You were frozen at the sight, almost unable to believe it was real.

“Be careful not to touch them,” Gon warned, “They’re poisonous.”

“They’re beautiful,” you breathed. Gon hummed in agreement.

You turned to ask him, wanting to ask what they were, but you’d misjudged how close behind you Gon was, bumping into him.

The touch of your lips to the corner of his wasn’t a kiss, not even an accidental one, but it could have been. Gon was warm for the moment you were pressed against him. But that moment was short, ended when you realized what had happened, you flinched away, trying to stumble back and give him space.

If it weren’t for his hands steadying you, you would have fallen over in your awkward retreat, eyes wide and lips tingling. Gon’s eyes were round, their surprise illuminated beautifully by the poisonous flowers.

“Was that on purpose?” he asked, a simple and curious question.

“No,” you responded quickly, afraid of giving him the wrong idea. To your surprise, Gon’s face fell, his disappointment obvious.

Seeing that made your heart thump, thoughts connecting before rationality could set in. You leaned in, closing the small distance between you. This time, your lips actually found his, your mouths pressed together for a prolonged second. He was even warmer now.

Gon’s hands still held you in place, keeping you close even after you pulled away from the demure kiss.

“That was on purpose,” you told him. Radiant in a way that had nothing to do with the flowers, Gon grinned.

“I’m glad.”

 

* * *

 

 

“You wanted something?” Killua asked, picking up his water battle and taking a few gulps. You forced yourself not to be distracted by the way his throat worked as he swallowed, fidgeting with your hands nervously. Although the two of you were drawing no attention, standing by the lockers in the back of the gym, you still felt as if the world was looking.

“Yeah, I just…” you took a deep breath, unable to meet his piercing blue eyes, “I really like spending time with you, and it’s cool when we work out together and you’re a great spotter but… Maybe we could hang out? Somewhere besides here, I mean, because I l-like you a lot and so I was wondering if you.. If you liked me too?”

How much time passed after your awkward confession was unclear to you, but it may as well have been years before he finally spoke.

“Idiot,” Killua said. Your stomach dropped. “Can you really not tell that I like you?”

Your eyes rose to look at him, heart racing hopefully. Killua looked slightly flustered, mussing up his unruly white hair. There was even a dash of color on his otherwise pale cheeks.

“Really?” you asked, hushed with awe. Killua met your eyes, a smile forming on his lips.

“I thought I was being obvious. You really are an idiot,” he teased.

“Well you’re the idiot if you thought you were being obvious, idiot,” you retorted, your eyes narrowed at him despite your soaring heart, “I had no idea, and I got myself all worked up thinking that you wouldn’t like me back and that I’d ruin everything. You could have at-”

Killua stopped your torrent of nervously excited words with a kiss, stepping close and leaning down before you could even finish the phrase. His hands held the back of your head, adding to the sweetness of the way he was pressed to you. It was short, nothing more than a few seconds of his lips against yours, but you had never experienced anything more romantic.

When he pulled away, you couldn’t help but try to follow him, seeking more. Killua’s laugh broke you from that bubble, your eyes snapping open.

“Was that obvious enough, idiot, or do you need more of an explanation?”


	2. Adultrio Prompt: I swear, if anyone lays a hand on you, I’ll cut their arm off

“ _I swear, if anyone lays a hand on you, I’ll cut their arm off_ ,  _too,_ ” Hisoka said sweetly into your ear, keeping you facing the dead man who’d been trying to seduce you.

You were shaking in the unwelcome cage of his arms, having just watched uselessly while the innocent man bled out. He’d taken a few minutes to die, but was now silent and still in the lake of his own blood. There was so much blood. After Hisoka removed his arm, it had begun begun gushing from the empty socket almost cartoonishly. 

The man’s only sin was a casual touch of your arm and a flirtatious smile. You hadn’t even known Hisoka was there, you had thought you were safe. 

“Why?” you asked in a voice surprisingly steady considering you just watched an innocent man bleed out while screaming for your help. It was despicable to sound so calm, especially while the murderer held you in what could only be called an embrace, but you needed to know. 

“It’s unforgivably rude to touch other people’s toys. Besides, it’s only an arm.”

* * *

 

 

“Illumi, everything is going to be fine. It’s not a big deal,” you told him with wide, imploring eyes. He’d been so paranoid about letting you leave the mountain since you’d gotten pregnant, but you were barely even showing yet. The doctor said it was healthy to get out and move around, especially in these early stages.

Illumi didn’t agree, but had eventually relented.

Still, he was obviously unimpressed with your attempt at convincing him that everything would be fine.

“What are the rules?” he asked, black stare piercing. You sighed, fighting the urge to roll your eyes.

“If I attempt to put any more than two meters distance between us without permission, I will be secured and returned home. If I disobey any of your orders, I will be returned home. If I put myself and our child at risk for any reason, I will be secured and taken home where my punishment will be considered. If we encounter any situation you think is dangerous, I will be secured and taken home,” you recited blandly, the words bitter on your tongue.

You didn’t think the rules were necessary, especially the one regarding punishment, but it was the price you had to pay for a break from the monotony of Kikyo’s endless lessons in motherhood.

Illumi’s face remained impassive, but his lack of comment meant you’d done well.

Perhaps he took your weary expression as nerves of the danger he was so obviously preparing for, because he raised a hand to brush your cheek.

“You don’t have to worry,” Illumi said, his voice softened somewhat, “ _If anyone lays a hand on you, I’ll cut their arm off.”_

* * *

 

 

“The people you know… the things you do… They’re dangerous, huh?” you asked Chrollo, trying to hide your anxiety underneath a layer of forced nonchalance. Truthfully, you were very happy he’d opened up to you -even if he was a criminal- but it was still hard to hear. 

Well, you could live with it. Because you loved him.

Chrollo cracked a smile, a grin made from cold humor that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You could say that,” he allowed, just as casually as you’d spoken.

Silence fell between you, sitting in the familiar comfort of your warmly lit living room as you often did when he visited. There were things you wanted to say, things you wanted him to say, but you weren’t sure how to approach them.

Finally, he broke the quiet by drawing breath, drawing your thankful gaze. 

The eyes you met weren’t quite the eyes of the man you knew, the man you loved. It was someone colder. Harder.

“ _I swear, if anyone lays a hand on you, I’ll cut their arm off_ ,” Chrollo vowed. Chills erupted down your arms, unable to pull yourself from that unfamiliar gaze with a strangely choked feeling in your throat.

Only moments later, the intensity between the two of you dropped, his mouth forming a warmer smile and eyes softening into the man you knew. 

You laughed awkwardly, relieved.

“That was a joke?” you asked hopefully.

“Of course,” he responded, but the cold was still tickling at the back of your neck.


	3. Yandere Shalnark Prompt: If loyalty isn’t enough to keep you by my side, then seven different kinds of locks should do the trick!

“I thought that… That I could accept it, but-” your voice cracked, strained by the days of crying you’d spent agonizing over this decision. Keeping your red rimmed eyes averted from the pressure of Shalnark’s gaze, you cleared your throat to continue. “I’ve thought about it from every angle, but I can’t-”  _love someone apart of an internationally feared group of criminals._

You’d practiced those words over and over in the hopes you could at least offer him the truth, but your voice cracked again and you couldn’t get it out. You weren’t even sure you could say their name. Phantom Troupe. Those words felt like acid on your lips.

“-I can’t be… with you. Anymore,” you finally said instead.

Shalnark was the first boyfriend you’d ever truly had feelings for, and you couldn’t even get your mouth to form the words to tell him why exactly you couldn’t be in a relationship anymore. Your reason was obvious enough for him to understand without you having to explain, but after everything you’d had together, didn’t you owe him the truth?

When you said nothing more, caught in a tangle of thoughts, Shalnark spoke,

“I was afraid of this.” he said regretfully with a sigh, drawing your damp eyes up to his. Your breath caught at how unaffected Shalnark seemed. In the pale green of his eyes you saw mild disappointment, not pain. “But I understand.”

His casual response rendered you mute. 

Really, what more was there to say? Drawing this out would only embarrass you, the tears were already pushing in a hot swell against the back of your eyes and his composure was making it worse.

“I-” hundreds of words caught in your throat, but they were all ashy in flavor. Telling him how much you cared now would only hurt. “I wish the best for you, Shal. You’re… I’ll never forget you.”

Running from the cafe you’d picked as neutral ground to break up with him was not the highlight of your life, neither was ducking into a random corner store to cry in the bathroom. The whole time, all you could wonder was if he’d responded to your last words.

Since Shalnark had told you his secret, that he was an internationally hated criminal, you’d been struck with a nasty streak of insomnia. It was a small mercy that the grief of the days events finally left your exhausted mind wrung out enough to offer the plunge into a state of unconsciousness.

 

* * *

 

 

The clicking of a mechanical keyboard was what pulled you up from unconsciousness. A familiar sound from hours spent with Shalnark, it was almost comforting. Instead of letting it actually wake you up, you tossed over to the other side of the bed, pulling your pillow over your head.

But you weren’t on a bed. Your turn pushed you into a hard metal surface, and the ‘pillow’ you tried to throw over your head was just your arm that was deadened and limp from sleeping on it. 

The crashing noise of impact woke you up in full, and it also stopped the clicking.

“Oh, did I wake you up?” Shalnark’s voice was concerned. 

Disoriented and startled, you quickly tried to get up, only to hit your head. 

Rubbing the sore spot, you settled for getting a good look at where you had been sleeping. Surreal dread began to creep up your spine as the visual pieces slowly began to register and process. Confined space. Bars. Metal.

You were in a cage. 

Shalnark squatted on the other side of the bars to look in at you, his computer setup in view behind him but the room itself unfamiliar to you. 

“Shal? What’s going on?” You sat up as much as you could, pushing yourself to the bars towards him, eyes wide and pleading and dread turning your stomach.

“I didn’t want to have to do this,” Shalnark said regretfully. 

You froze, a sick feeling hitting you. That regretful tone was the same he’d had when you’d broken up with him. You remembered now, with a clarity brought by fear, that yesterday you had ended your relationship. The last thing you remembered was going to sleep. Alone.

“I don’t… I don’t understand, Shal. What is this?” Panic was working its way into your voice, a trapped feeling filling your chest, constricting your breathing. 

“This? It’s a dog cage,” he told you, as if confused by the question. Hearing that oh-so-familiar tone of voice made it worse, made you wish for this to be nothing more than a terrifying nightmare. 

“Why?” you spoke in a small voice, the only kind you could manage to get out.

“Because,” he responded, turning to an expression that could only be described as somewhat cheerful, moving to the door of the cage by your feet and pulling something up for you to see,  _“If loyalty isn’t enough to keep you by my side, then seven different kinds of locks should do the trick!”_


	4. Kurapika Kurta + Yearning and Pining

Revenge was passion, it was scarlet fire in his heart.

The rest, the world Kurapika had once longed for as well as the people within it, was washed into monochrome.

Apathy became a familiar companion to the anger, the friend that kept the fire from consuming him as it raged. His fury had hardened into a single-minded goal, and Kurapika realized that it was better not to care about anything other than achieving it.

He told himself you were nothing more than a stepping block along the way, another means of gaining information. He told himself a lot of things, but that didn’t change the truth.

The truth was that he first saw you after a day spent, as most of them were, researching. Revenge could be very dry, at times, endless reading of relevant books and articles and picking apart morsels of information from fearful whispers here and there.

Kurapika’s long shadow was his sole companion as he walked back to the hostel, weighed down by the books he’d spend the upcoming sleepless night buried in and head full of barely repressed thoughts.

They crawled out of the dark without any art or stealth. Basic thugs. The city was known for its gang problems, but that was hardly of any consequences to Kurapika. A minor inconvenience, at worst. At best, Kurapika could consider them a distraction.

They bore down with sharp grins and a demeanor that promised something far worse than the actual threat they posed. If Kurapika cared more, he would have pitied them for making such a stupid choice in target. But then-

“What do you think you’re doing?” your voice cut through the noise. Not the voices of the thugs or the busy soundtrack of the large city, but the near constant sound of nothingness that was the only barrier to the screams that lurked in the corners of Kurapika’s mind. He heard you clearly.

With an easy grace, you wedged yourself between him and the encroaching thugs.

“You boys are out of bounds. What are you even thinking? Attacking some tourist where anybody could stumble upon you. No wonder the Bradley’s are getting picked up by the cops left and right, you’re getting real sloppy.”

You had no drawn weapon other than an unshakable confidence, staring down the big thugs without concern. There was no way you were older than Kurapika’s fourteen, and you even stood an inch or two shorter. He’d been ready to take them out himself, but it was still shocking to see what he might have looked like from an outside perspective.

You were captivating.

“It’s that Clover Street bitch,” one of the thugs spat, but his portreyed disgust was obviously colored by fear.

They were intimidated by you. The other one put on more of a show of bravery, taking a step towards you as his smile widened.

“Oh? How’s Lucky? Still licking at his heels, or have you finally worked your way up and into the old fucker’s pants?”

Kurapika recognized that now, when nobody was paying any attention to him, he had the chance to slink off into the shadows. That would be the most logical action. Logical, yes, but he felt unable to pull his eyes from you. Among his grayscale world, you were blinding.

“Go home, boys, you’re ruining my evening walk.” You spoke dismissively, but the threat was clear.

The twilight air grew even more tense. All three boys had their eyes fixed on you. Then, one of the guys cursed bitterly.

“Whatever, pretty boy ain’t worth shit anyway,” he said, turning away.

“You oughta spend more time watchin’ your own back, bitch. Your bark ain’t nearly as intimidating as you think it is,” the other said, his words contrasting with the defeated slump to his shoulders as he followed his friend.

They left, bringing all the tension with them.

You turned to Kurapika with a wide smile, one of the first genuine grins he’d seen in awhile. With the sunset casting a warm glow on your face, it was one of the loveliest things he’d seen in longer than he dared to remember.

“Sorry about that,” you apologized, scratching the back of your head sheepishly. Threat averted, your stern confidence was gone and replaced by a friendly air as you regarded him. “Gah, this is embarrassing… I hope you won’t think too poorly of the rest of us.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kurapika said stiffly. Awkward. He felt awkward, standing there in the empty street with you. Belatedly, he added, “Thank you.”

Staring at him with a gaze more piercing that he might have liked, your smile became mischievous.

“You were gonna fight them, weren’t you?” you asked, eyes alight. Kurapika blinked, surprised yet again.

“You could tell?”

“They should thank me for saving their sorry asses, huh? I would’ve liked to see you beat them up, but I’d feel guilty for making a tourist do my chores.”

“Chores?” Kurapika questioned.

“Taking out the trash!” you said with a theatrically silly beat, grinning widely at your own joke. He blinked.  

Laughter rose up from a place Kurapika barely recognized, stinging of betrayal and strange. But you joined in, full of carefree joy, and he found that he didn’t mind it.

He didn’t mind it when you offered to buy him dinner to ‘make up for the inconvenience’, either, or when you walked him to the place he was staying. It seemed almost like fate that you would mention the information you could give him, an easy excuse for his desire to see you again.

Still, when he saw you in the morning light it struck him anew. You were bright. Colorful. Talking to you was easier than he would have thought possible, conversation flowing seamlessly as you told him about yourself, asking him things in return.

Each time Kurapika lied to you, he wondered if you could tell. Your eyes cast no blame, your smile never faltering and warmth never dimming as you accepted each untruth he could manage to get out about his past, about who he was.

There was no other way. His wounds were too deep, and Kurapika knew that his personal fire would burn you. So he faked a smile, he told you lies, and all the while he convinced himself that this was necessary.

It was the truth, in a way. The information you had, as a member of one of the largest gangs in the city, was useful. The Phantom Troupe had recently stolen a few prized religious texts, a blow to the local’s pride but also a good chance to study the Spider’s methods directly.  

But, that wasn’t all. Something about you, about the lies he told both to you and to himself, hurt. It was a different hurt than Kurapika was used to. An ache. Your smile bloomed light, inviting and kind.

The truth was painful. The truth was that it really would have been better to remain in his uncaring and monochrome world.

Especially in the end.

The setting was eerily similar to your first meeting. Exchanging dusk for dawn and hopeful introductions for bitter goodbyes.

“You’re leaving?”

How could your voice convey such distress, your emotions worn so carelessly on your sleeve? How did you do that and not expect to be hurt? You were a fool, a hopeless and beautiful fool.

“There’s no reason for me to say, I’ve gotten what I came for,” Kurapika replied, keeping both his tone and expression stoney. Another lie, but the kindest one he’d told so far.

“What about me?”

There it was. Kurapika couldn’t help but flinch at the brokenness of your tone, so different from the bravery and joy you’d offered him before. He couldn’t meet your eyes, wishing for the fire to burn away this dreadful ache, but all he felt was the cold in the absence of your light.

What about you? Where did you fit in within his quest for revenge? The answer was obvious. You didn’t. To keep pretending would be treacherous and selfish.

“I’m very thankful for your help,” Kurapika said, detached and professional.

“Don’t leave me. I love you.”

How could a person so confident and brave sound so weak? Strength fled Kurapika at hearing those words, those horrible, horrible words. Because he could stay. Stay with you, at least for a while longer. Someday, he could even tell you the truth. Maybe you could help him, save him from the fire.

Kurapika closed his eyes, ridding himself of those thoughts.

“That doesn’t change anything.”

But it did. Of course it did. Because he wanted your love, he wanted to see your smile every day and bask in the glow of your light. He wanted to hear for your jokes and your voice, allow it to soothe him.

That was the most important reason for him having to leave. If he stayed, he might forget, and that scared him more than anything.

“You don’t have to shut me out, and you don’t have to be alone anymore, I-”

Kurapika cut you off, his tone sharp with the anger of fear and pain.

“I am alone.”


	5. Yandere Kurapika Prompt: Your life is completely in my hands, so don’t try to test my boundaries.

Kurapika had taken to pacing, his dangerous Aura suffocating the small room that had become your prison.

You’d never seen him like this, not when you screamed or fought, or when you cried and begged. Most of the time he just seemed sad and detached, but always in control. This was nothing like the man, the captor, you were used to seeing. Your escape attempt had really affected him.

In your head, hateful glee at finally having broken his cool facade warred with the fear of the person in front of you. Over all of it was the misery of knowing how close you’d gotten to actually finding a way out of this place, an attempt that had taken weeks to organize and plan for.

It had all been for nothing. Kurapika would never allow for the same flaw to be exploited twice. Was that what he was thinking about? How to build a better cage? That thought filled you with helpless fear, but that fear so easily burned into a furious fever. 

Kurapika was dangerous right now, but you weren’t sure you had anything to lose.

“Are you just gonna pace all night?” you taunted, voice full of cruel bravado, “If you’re angry why not hurt me, huh? You have no problem keeping me locked up, what’s a few broken bones. Right, Kurapika?”

He froze, feet coming together and falling still. When he lowered his hand from his face, the chains clinked together ominously. Then Kurapika looked at you. 

You had made a really big mistake.

His expression wasn’t one of the anger you felt emanating from him, but something calm and haunting. In almost every aspect, Kurapika looked as collected as you’d ever seen. Except for his eyes.

Kurapika had never hurt you. You had no experience with him being violent, nothing that would warrant your intensely visceral reaction of terror upon meeting his gaze. No experience-based fear that would urge you to back up when he began taking slow steps towards you. You’d never even seen his eyes like this, burning red behind the cover of a contact.

And then you hit the edge of the counter, the pain striking against your spine and stopping your futile retreat. That momentary distraction was all it took for him to reach you, blocking any escape with a hand gripping the counter on either side of you. Kurapika was intimately close, his face only inches from yours.

You were completely trapped.

Trapped by the sight of the scarlet of his eyes obscured by the film of gray. Trapped by Kurapika’s sickening emotions, which you felt almost as clearly as you could feel the warmth of his body.

Dread filled you, it was the dryness of your mouth and the rapid thump of your heartbeat in your chest. It made time stretch on seemingly endlessly as you waited for the tension to snap, for him to close the distance between the two of you. To hurt you. 

Instead, Kurapika spoke in a voice that was nothing short of eerily controlled, his eyes burning into yours.

_“Your life is completely in my hands, so don’t try to test my boundaries.”_


	6. Yandere Pariston Hill Prompt: I’d hate to hurt you, but it’s for your own good. You know how dangerous other people can be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically I wrote these separately but they go together. I love the Glitter Rat~

You smiled to the receptionist, a tight, uncomfortable smile, as you left the building. Despite the painful pace of your heartbeat and the shakiness of your hands, she wished you a good day with a professional sort of kindness. **  
**

Neither her nor the security guard stopped you from leaving the air conditioned lobby. There was no thunderous sound of men rushing to restrain you or blaring sirens when your manicured hands pushed against the cold metal bar to open the door.

You hesitated. It hadn’t been that long, Pariston probably still believed you were in the bathroom. If you went back now, maybe… He’d undoubtedly know you’d gone with the intent to escape, but he’d be kinder if you returned and apologized now instead of…

No. Shaking your head to clear it somewhat, you escaped into the sunny day, confidently turning right as if you had any sort of goal or destination in mind. Well, you attempted confidence. In truth, you felt jumpy and nervous, guilt and fear a heavy knot in your chest.

You walked without giving any thought to what you were doing or where you were going until your feet began to hurt from the pinch of your fancy shoes. You followed the crowd of people until you felt suffocated by the mass of bodies, overwhelmed at the feeling of being so isolated while in a crowd.

No, the crowd itself was making you feel isolated.

Every flash of blond hair made your heart drop, every glimpse of a suit that looked even somewhat familiar made your hands tremble. You saw him in everything, everywhere. Paranoid fear had your breath wheezing as reality set in and the truth of what you’d done hit you in full.

It hit you  _hard_. Fear, guilt, and anger at yourself for being so stupid and impulsive. There was nothing you could do, nowhere you could go. This little escapade was just as pointless as anything else you’d ever attempted, and all it would do would hurt you in the end.

Without money, without a phone, without-

No, even with those things you’d still be unable to escape from Pariston’s grip.

Stepping away from the foot traffic and into the small amount of shade offered by a nearby building, you all but doubled over as a familiar sick feeling consumed you. It was only a matter of time, right? Only a matter of time before Pariston found you again and then….

What would it be this time… the basement? Or would this be the thing to push him into finally hurting your friends? Once you’d been brave, you knew, but that was a fleeting memory from another life. All you could hope was that his mercy and that twisted emotion he called love would protect those who you cared about despite how carelessly you’d acted.

“Miss, are you alright?” someone asked, an unfamiliar feminine voice joined by the gentle feeling of a hand on your back. That unknown touch made you snap upright, regarding the caring woman who’d reached out with fearful eyes.

She stepped back, startled. Even still, concern was obvious on her face. Concern.

Could she not tell? Was it not obvious? Nobody, not the woman standing in front of you nor the millions of other people who lived in the city, could help you now. Nobody in the world could save you.

You swallowed hard, trying to choke down the lump in your throat and blink away the film of tears.

Your embarrassing behavior was drawing negative attention. He  _really_ hated it when you did that.

“I’m fine,” you choked out. She didn’t look at all convinced.

“You look a little-”

“Darling!” his voice cut through all the other noise of the street, through the woman’s words and her damned good intentions, like a knife. You stomach, too, felt like it’d been sliced as you looked up at Pariston’s expression of worry as he came to stand beside you.

He also brought a strange sense of calm. At least you didn’t have to kill yourself with anticipation any longer.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you, are you okay?”

Pariston sounded so genuine, so sweet, didn’t he? Like a prince. He looked the part, too, with the sun illuminating his golden hair and white striped suit. A modern day knight in shining armor. The woman looked at him with surprise, but not doubt. Who could doubt a man who looked so caring, so loving?

Right then, you knew that you could do it. You  _could_  protest, tell the woman that Pariston was not your boyfriend -and that he was little more than your jailor- but what then? You weren’t sure of the price of _this_  act of disobedience, if you actually made him mad, what would he do?

It wasn’t worth finding out, you didn’t want to fight against him any more today. Giving in to the dull weight of defeat, you stepped close so he could put a gentle hand on your shoulder, smiling without any of the art or skill he possessed.

“I just needed some air… is the meeting over?” you asked, your voice relatively more convincing than earlier. Perhaps all you’d needed was the right audience.

Pariston’s eyes flashed, an expression only you would recognize for what it was. It made your stomach clench in terror, lurch in guilt and regret. His smile didn’t budge, strikingly white in the sun.

“Yes, yes, when I realized you were gone I was so worried about you that I couldn’t stay,” Pariston laughed airily, another nail in your coffin. Your behavior had embarrassed him. What would that cost? “Ah, they can wait another day. For now, I think it’s time we went home, no?”

“If that’s all then,” the woman said, smiling in an awkwardly nice way. Pariston waved to her as she left, calling his thanks. Then the hand on your shoulder tightened painfully.

“It greatly saddens me that you’ve tried this again,” Pariston sighed in disappointment, his hand tightening even further, “After you’ve been so well behaved, too… Well, I hope you had some fun today, because it will  _never_  happen again.”

 

* * *

 

 

The atmosphere of the car was tense and silent, Pariston sitting in the back with you and the non-entity that was his driver in the front. The quiet gave you ample time to sit and stew in the guilt and despair of your useless attempt at escape, agonizing over how he’d punish you this time.

Punishment. The word, and all of the things Pariston had done with it, made you feel sick

“Do your feet hurt from walking in those shoes?” Pariston suddenly asked, making you jump. You looked up at him, heart thudding all the way up in your throat. He looked concerned, eyes directed down at your feet. You knew better than to trust that expression to be genuine. 

To trust him.

Pariston impatiently continued when you didn’t respond, “Let me see.”

Despite your doubt, you didn’t dare to hesitate, knowing better to risk angering Pariston further. Especially when you were already in trouble. With a firm but gentle touch, he pulled your feet into his lap, turning you sideways on the buttery leather seat.

Pariston’s unreadable eyes studied your feet, and the sight made you wince. Not because of the painful blisters you’d been ignoring, but because your expensive shoes showed obvious signs of your walk.

“What a shame,” he said, falling back into the dramatics with an exaggerated frown.

You wanted to pull your feet away, but all he had to do was sharply tug on them to keep you still as he undid the straps to pull off the once-beautiful heels. 

“Your  _little adventure_  ruined them,” he told you gravely, holding one up by the straps.

Although you didn’t pick out or buy any of your own clothes, you knew this particular pair of shoes was worth at least thousands of Jenny. It made your chest clench, both in anxiety over how he’d react and to waste so much money. Even if it wasn’t yours, old habits died hard. 

After that moment of remorse, Pariston casually threw them aside, landing with an unceremonious thump somewhere under the seat. You winced at the sound.

“And look at your feet,” he said, continuing on as if he were upset. As if he felt bad for you. “They look like they hurt badly. Do they? You poor thing..” he gently touched your feet, his soft hands only making you more nervous.

“Ray,” Pariston called up to the driver in a clear voice, his expression unreadable, “I think we better make a trip to the hospital.”

“Yes, Mr. Hill,” the man replied in monotone, switching lanes to get to the new destination.

“Pariston, that’s not necessary… They’re just blisters,” you said with hopeful naivety, a pit of fear landing like a punch to your gut at the mention of needing the hospital.

Pariston turned to you, still wearing that expression of faux concern, his eyebrows drawn and mouth in a frown. His hands continued to gently stroke your ankles and the tops of your feet, like you’d pet a beloved animal to soothe it.

“Do you know how much you’ve hurt me? Did you think of how scared I would be when I realized you’d gone out into the city all by yourself? When I consider all of the terrible things that might have happened to take you away from me, or think about someone  _else_  hurting you..” 

There was a new look in Pariston’s eyes, something dark and frightening. Despite that, over and over, you felt the soft feeling of his fingers over your skin. You squirmed, wanting to pull your feet away but not daring to.

“I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry,” you said, pleading with him and trying not to panic.

“It can’t happen again,” Pariston told you softly, his hands falling still and dark eyes meeting yours.

“It won’t, I promise that it won’t-”

There was a sound, the ugly and sickening sound of a bone being broken. Then, your scream. It was piercing in the small cab of the car, and when your eyes closed all you could see was the image of Pariston calmly snapping your ankle with his soft and manicured hands. 

_“I hate to hurt you, but it’s for your own good. You know how dangerous other people can be.”_

Your teary eyes opened, body contorting violently with sobs, in time to watch as he snapped the other ankle.


	7. Pariston Hill Prompt: You’re so vulnerable right now.

You should have known to be skeptical of that mischievous glint in Pariston’s eyes when he’d brought it up. Bondage was one thing, but letting him blindfold you really had been an error of judgement. 

The fact that you couldn’t see him had you flinching at every perceived movement, waiting with bated breath for the moment he made his move. Your legs were trembling unsteadily as you did your best to balance upright with your arms bound behind your back, swaying uncertainly. 

Really, all you could hope for at this point was that if you were patient and well behaved he’d have some measure of mercy on you. That was what kept you from speaking, no matter how strong the urge was. The more you wanted something, the more fun he’d have in denying you. 

Pariston could be scarily patient and cruel when it came to ensuring your discomfort and prolonging the torment, and you wouldn’t put it past him to leave you in this compromising position for hours on end. That thought made your heart race, nerves twisting your stomach as you listened closely for any movement.

“Are you scared? You’re shaking,” Pariston suddenly asked, his tone of predatory delight masked only slightly by faux concern. His words made you jump with a startled gasp. You hadn’t even felt him get close.

Despite that, he’d spoken directly into your ear, displacing the fine hairs there and sending shuddering chills down your spine. Pariston didn’t otherwise touch you, making your body tense further in anticipation, your skin flushing hotly despite how little you were wearing.

“I’m not,” you said as firmly as you could, trying to play brave in the hope he’d relent and stop teasing you like this. Unfortunately, from the way his breath caught, you got the feeling that was the wrong choice. 

“Oh? You should be,” Pariston told you lowly, the sadistic glee obvious in his tone, “ _You’re so vulnerable right now._ ”


	8. Pariston Hill Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pariston Hill - Soulmate AU where every person has a timer on their wrist that only they can see that counts down to zero, aka the moment they will meet their Soulmate for the first time~

Truthfully, your Soulmate could not have possibly come at a worse time. The chaos of the office sort of spoiled all the excitement you had built up about today being the day you would meet your other half.

Things were frighteningly busy, everybody working on getting the year documented and filed properly before the new one hit. On the bright side, you weren’t given any time to give in to the agony of anticipation. However, it meant that when you could finally catch a breath between all logging and filing your timer was literally minutes away from zero.

You did a double take to the numbers on your wrist, unable to believe your eyes at first. After realizing that you’d seen right the first time, your stomach flipped. There was no way you’d be able to meet your Soulmate for the first time here, in an office full of people you already knew.

So that meant that you had to leave, right, prompt faite into the right direction?

With things so hectic, you didn’t dare leave without letting someone know. You approached your superior, a nearly sickening feeling of urgency whirling through you.  

“Rhona, is it okay if I take my break?” you asked her, trying to keep the desperation from your voice. She looked more tired and stressed than you’d ever seen her, which made you feel bad for asking. But it was an issue of the soul, which meant it was slightly more important than keeping the Association running. Well, at least to you.

“Yes, but first can you take these upstairs?” she asked, gesturing to two huge piles of paperwork carefully stacked into boxes, “It’s paperwork outlining the upcoming year, everyone up there needs to read it and sign. You’ll need to collect them at the end of the day.”

You opened your mouth to protest, a strange feeling of panic filling you. Your countdown timer was only minutes from zero. Was there anyone in the office you didn’t already know? You were at least acquaintances with everyone upstairs, since Rhona often used you as the messenger to those working directly under the top tier.

“I can, but-”

“Please? We’re already late with it and you know how they are,” Rhona said, “Self important pricks can’t be bothered to sign something if it happens to be even slightly inconvenient, and it all needs to be in the system by the end of the week.”

Rhona looked overworked and tired when her eyes met yours, pleading with you instead of her usual confident demands.

“Okay,” you relented, unable to refuse, “After that, I can go?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you,” she responded, “Don’t forget to check they’ve all signed when you pick them up later. If anyone gives you a hard time, you have my permission to get aggressive.”

Rhona left you with that vaguely disturbing sentiment, hurrying over when another coworker called her. You checked your timer. So little time… You needed to hurry.

There was nothing else you could do. You had to trust fate that somehow this would lead you to your Soulmate. Trust fate. Right.

You scooped up the two boxes, groaning at how heavy it was. If you didn’t feel so frantic, so pressed for time, you might have appreciated the logic of taking two trips. But there was no time.

Walking oddly due to the awkward weight in your arms, you made your way to the elevator and hit the button as carefully as you could so as to not unbalance the boxes.

The ride up was agonizing, each second hitting hard.

Finally, the doors opened

The upper floor, as usual, wasn’t the chaotic mess of the one you worked on. For the most part, there was a professional sort of quiet to it.

You had to peek around the side of the stacks of papers as you crossed the office, unable to see over them. At the same time as you knew you needed to be careful, you also knew you needed to hurry. Your heart was racing, the timer on your wrist heavy as if to make up for the fact you couldn’t check and see exactly how much time was left.

If you were being more careful, you might not have tripped on a stray extension cord. But you did, and it sent you tumbling.

Of course, falling couldn’t possibly be only as embarrassing as the fall itself, but it was also an aggressively attention-grabbing flurry of paper in the otherwise professionally hushed office and a high pitched startled squeak you weren’t even aware you could make until that moment.

Your knees connected hard with the floor, your hands thrown out to catch yourself before you splayed face first on the floor. Except, the thing you steadied yourself against was soft. And warm.

The legs of a person. To be more specific, their thighs. You had your hands pressed against someone’s thighs, your face at crotch level. Surrounded by loose paper you would have to pick up. With everyone in the office watching.

If there was any time you’d ever wished to be dead, this would be it.

“Eh… Are you alright?” the voice of the person above you sounded mildly worried, which was a small mercy considering you’d all but thrown yourself at them. If you didn’t work with Hunters, there was even a chance you might have hurt him.  

Him. A man. Your hands were up against the blue trousers of a man, on your knees in just about the worst position you could have fallen into. Your horrified gaze slid upwards, and although you hadn’t ever met him directly, everyone knew Pariston Hill’s face. Eyes widened in alarm at the realization and cheeks aflame, a sick feeling twisting your stomach, you flinched away.

Not that it really mattered, but Pariston Hill wore an expression of surprised concern at your assault rather than the anger you probably deserved. It didn’t matter because your face had been inches from his crotch and you weren’t sure you’d ever wished to disappear so much.

“I’m so sorry,” you said, voice hoarse with dread.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asked, eyebrows raised and lips slightly pursed in worry. You blinked, taking a second to recognize that not only were your stockings ripped in the knee, but the fall had split your skin.

Looking down brought your attention to another point.

Your timer was at zero.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” you muttered in disbelief.

“Eh? Did I say something funny?” Pariston -Vice Chairman Hill- asked with an air of cluelessness.

You looked up at him, a whole different sort of panic filling your chest. The sleeve of his jacket was covering his timer. Did he not check it? Was it at zero, just like yours? Or, could it be that this was just a misunderstanding and you actually had a defective timer that led not to your soulmate, but to the most embarrassing moment of your life.

Instead of trying to deal with any of that, you pulled your frantic gaze from his slightly confused eyes to begin collecting all the dropped paper. People had returned to whatever they had been doing before now that the scene was over, although you could already hear the buzz of gossip.

At the very least, you were professional enough to push back the humiliated tears burning the back of your eyes, keeping your eyes down and focused on picking up the mess.

“Shouldn’t you take care of your injury?” Pariston asked in concern, still looming above you.

“It’ll be fine,” you said hurriedly, “I need to pick these up.”

“You’ll get blood on the carpet,” he pointed out . Then he spoke louder, addressing the room rather than just you, “Will one of you tidy up these papers for Miss-”

Looking back up when you realized he was waiting for you to answer. You gave him your name in the most unaffected tone you could manage, which was to say, choked and quiet.

“Miss Y/N-” he said, looking straight at you with a smile.

Your heart skipped at that smile. Was he actually your Soulmate? The idea of that was lunacy, really. Somebody like you being fated to be with a Zodiac? Especially the controversial Rat, who was as adored as he was hated.

“-She hurt herself and must take care of it right away. It would be very much appreciated if someone could do her -and me- this favor,” Pariston finished, addressing the room again.

A beat passed of prolonged silence. Awkward, tense. Nobody wanted to volunteer for grunt work. That was what people like you were for. Finally, thankfully, a voice belonging to someone you didn’t know the name of chirped,

“I can.”

“Thank you so very much. Your kindness is truly appreciated,” Pariston said to her, gushing gratitude. Then he turned back to you with another smile, “See, now you don’t have to worry about it.” He spoke as if he’d just solved everything and not made you look even more incompetent than you already were. “We have a first aid kit in the break room, but, ah-” he laughed, “-You probably don’t know where that is. I’ll show you.”

Pariston offered you a hand, which you took belatedly. Soft. His hand was really soft, enveloping yours in a firm grip. Was it the hand of your Soulmate or the hand of a nice guy helping you out of pity? How were you meant to tell?

“Thanks…Ah, I really am fine, though. I mean, you don’t need to feel obligated to help me, I am the one who ran into you, I’d hate to trouble you further,” you said with an awkward chuckle, unable to meet his eyes. Pariston laughed, an easy and light sound  
.  
“Oh no, it won’t be any trouble at all! I’m happy to be of help,” he said reassuringly, “Just follow me and we can take care of that nasty cut.”

Looking down, you realized that it was kind of nasty. You’d landed wrong on your right knee and left it bloody.

“Oh.. Okay. Ah, thank you,” you said. He hummed in acknowledgement of your thanks, leading you through the office with an uncaring confidence. Did he not feel the eyes following him, following you? It was all you could feel, making you feel more self-conscious than you’d felt for the first time in a very long while.

The break room smelled like coffee as was basically required by office law, but it was considerably nicer than the one you were used to.

“Sit,” Pariston said, gesturing to one of the stools, “Now let’s see..” he began going through the cabinets while you stood uncertainly behind him.

“This isn’t really necessary, Vice Chairman Hill, I mean you’re-” leagues above my position. Not only in the Association, but in the world. “-Probably busy.”

First aid kit in hand, he turned to you, another baffled sort of expression on his face.

“Too busy to aid a fellow Hunter?” he asked, as if the idea was all but unthinkable, “Perhaps that’s the way of my fellow Zodiacs, but in my opinion it’s important to establish trust and community within the Association. Don’t you agree?”

Pariston spoke with an undeniable charisma, giving you a clear understanding of why he was able to create such dogmatically loyal supports among the ranks. For a moment, it left you stunned.

“I guess that’s true,” you finally said, hopping up onto one of the stools without further complaint. It would only be rude at this point, plus you still were desperate to know if his timer was at zero.

The thought of asking him directly crossed your mind, but the threat of rejection was far too frightening to be bold just yet. Asking the attractive and charming Vice Chairman if you were his Soulmate and being told no would be far worse than any embarrassing fall or accidental groping.

“Now let’s see…” he said, looking through the kit before coming up with some disinfecting wipes, “This might sting,” he warned before beginning to dab at your knee. It did sting, but what rattled you more was having him so close. “My, my… You seem to have the worst luck,” he told you with a friendly laugh.

Your stomach flipped. He was right more than he probably knew.

“Y… yeah. Today’s just not my day,” you replied distantly, your eyes unable to leave his face as he focused on your wound. Pariston really was attractive, but not as uptight as you’d think with his slightly messy blond hair. It gave him a very approachable appearance, along with those sparkling brown eyes. Almost boyish.  

“Eh? Is there something on my face?” he asked, looking up at you. You blinked, cheeks heating anew.

“No!” you responded quickly, “I was just thinking that you’re… You’re very different that I thought you would be.”

Pariston smiled, a strangely knowing expression when compared to his previous look of cluelessness.

“I hope you’re not disappointed.” Was it just you, or was there a double meaning in those words? It made your breath catch, but Pariston merely went back to prodding at your wound attentively. “After all, it’d be a real shame to let down my Soulmate after you went through all this effort to get my attention.”

You choked, chest clenching. Had he just… He had, you realized. Soulmate. He’d called you his Soulmate.

Pariston didn’t even look up while speaking, his words spoken lowly, but not so different as to indicate the enormity of what he’d just admitted.

“There,” Pariston declared, straightening out with a smile. When he saw your face, however, that became an expression of worry, “Oh dear, are you okay?”

There was no way he didn’t understand the effect of what he’d just said, but you saw nothing of the deceit in his expression. Had he been acting the entire time, then? 

“I’m… you…” you sputtered, unsure how to express your sudden mess of emotions. Indignation won out first, coming out in your accusation when rational thoughts finally found traction in your mind. “You.. You tricked me.” 

Pariston didn’t deny it, sheepishly laughing while scratching the back of his head, eyes closed and a faint color on the apples of his cheeks.

“Sorry, sorry!” he apologized, “Seeing how cute you are made me unable to resist teasing you a little,” he admitted. 

You couldn’t figure out if you should feel relieved, excited, or upset. 

Pariston’s eyes opened, meeting yours with an expression more clear than you’d seen. Darker, maybe. It made your stomach tense, a shiver running down your spine.

“I’m glad it’s you. I can already tell that we’re going to have  _a lot_  of fun together.”


	9. Illumi Zoldyck Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Illumi Zoldyck- Soulmate AU where the name of your Soulmate appears on your wrist on your 18th birthday, tying your lives together from that day on~

You wore long sleeves. Sometimes mid-length gloves. If it came to it, you would even settle for chunky bracelets or a quick bandage wrap.

Anything to hide his name.

His name- As in the name of your Soulmate, printed in black across the inside of your left wrist in your very own handwriting. A mark that was impossible to remove, to cover in any permanent way. A mark that tied your life to that of another, to the one who was your fated other half.

As far as the subject of Soulmates, you’d always assumed it to be a problem for your future self. There was no room for contemplation about what might be while fighting your way out of Meteour City, let alone to entertain the idea of romance or fate.

Before the day when the mark appeared, you hadn’t even known your actual birthday, making you several months older than you’d previously assumed, but that didn’t seem so important when you saw the name. It was there, squatting in some dingy abandoned wreck of apartment blocks, that recognition your gut like a blast of ice.

Illumi Zoldyck.

As in, the nearly mythical family of Zoldyck assassins.

After the initial shock wore off, rubbing and staring at the name until your wrist was raw and eyes blurred with black, several thoughts organized themselves into a proper arrangement. Both centered around one of the key points of having a Soulmate.

If they died, so did you. It happened fairly often, people randomly keeling over before even finding their fated partner. It strengthened most people’s desire to track down their Soulmate in an attempt to ensure their own life. This was especially true for important people.

Important people like Illumi Zoldyck. There was no way he’d leave his life in the hands of some stranger, but what would he do if he found you? What lengths would he go to to ensure his life wasn’t at risk? You were terrified to think of it.

After fighting your way out of the suffocating confines of a city built on greed and violence to find freedom, the idea losing it all for the sake of one man fearing death was bitter and painful.

There was a second problem, the reason for your newfound love of long sleeves. The name on your arm made you a fantastic bargaining chip against one of the most powerful families in the world. If the wrong person found out, they could make you into a weapon. So you kept your mouth shut, hiding the mark no matter what.

As you saw it, the small stroke of luck you had was in your past. As a native of Meteour City, there were no official documents that Illumi Zoldyck could find to track your name to you, and there was no way he’d put your name out there for any enemy of his to hear.

So, basically, as long as you enjoyed freedom as quietly as you could, you were sure you could evade detection.

Upon second thought, that might have been naive.

Your hair was still damp from showering at the gym, but the faint smell of soap was erased by the stronger scent of sweat and blood. After taking all that care to clean up post-workout, a group of wannabe baddies decided to ruin it by picking a fight. You had only accidentally insulted their leader, they were just bad sports.

Well, at least you’d have something to drink to. Namely, their sorry asses laying passed out in the street. Silver lining, and all that.

As your second nature of paranoid behavior dictated, you took a rather roundabout and lonesome path towards your favorite bar. The one with the friendly bartender who always kept a nicely stocked first aid kit on hand and a general crowd that you counted friends. Your wounds weren’t fatal, but they weren’t as minor as you’d have liked, either. It wasn’t your fault cowards always attacked in groups.

There was no sign that you should’ve been on guard, no warning or shift that made you think something was off.

No, you didn’t even realize it until it was too late.

Your fated appeared as you jumped down from a convenient fire escape into the dead end of a dark alley, standing at the mouth where the alley connected to the street. His figure was back-lit by the streetlamps, turning him into some otherworldly demon figure made of shadow without any defining features you could make out.

Illumi Zoldyck. As instinctual as the sudden burst of fear was the absolute knowledge that this was the man fate had slated to be your Soulmate, the reaper who’d finally come to collect your life to preserve his own.

You were stuck in place, your body torn between fight or flight. He broke the silence first.

“Y/N,” he said, quiet enough you wondered if it was even for you to hear, “Hey.”

If adrenaline weren’t pumping your heart at a nearly painful rate, you might have found the bizarrely casual introduction somewhat funny.

“Illumi Zoldyck,” you acknowledged in return, your mouth forming the familiar name with all the weight it carried, “How did you find me?” you asked, the only question you could think of.

“You’re going to the bar down the street, aren’t you? Everyone there knew your name. They actually told me many things about you. You should be more careful about who you trust with your secrets,” Illumi warned, no trace of deceit or ill will in his voice. In fact, he spoke with an amused lilt.

“They wouldn’t talk to you,” you said, firm with conviction. Unless he’d used means to force them to tell him. That thought turned your stomach.

“They wouldn’t?” he questioned curiously, “In any case, it seems the bar is closed for the night.” He stepped from the edge of the alley, light hitting his face and revealing Illumi Zoldyck to your eyes for the first time.

Long, black hair flowed behind him when he walked, pushed away from a pale and sharp-featured face. For all that his voice sounded friendly, even playful, his expression was blank. Draped in shadows that might have been from a lack of sleep or the poor lighting, his eyes were bottomless and black. Illumi raised his hand, reaching out to you. Inviting you to take it with a poise and confidence that didn’t expect to be denied.

“Come with me, instead.”

If details like the pain of your wounds and the slightly sour stench of the alley weren’t present, you wouldn’t have believed that this was reality, that this was your Soulmate. 

Was it imagination or some genuine cosmic force at work that made you consider his words, for just a fraction of a second? Pushing that aside, you pulled yourself together, crossing your arms defiantly.

“What did you do to my friends?” you demanded. Illumi blinked, as if surprised at your refusal. 

“If I tell you, will you come with me?” he asked in return. 

“I won’t,” you denied bluntly, frowning at that skewed logic.

Illumi disregarded your rejection, eyes dropping to your covered left wrist. You looked down at his own, hanging at his side. Despite the cover of shadow, you could vaguely make out your name written there. He didn’t cover it.

“You’re wearing long sleeves,” he noted.

“No shit,” you muttered, unsure of how you should feel at his casual display of your name. 

If Illumi was put off by your profanity, he didn’t show, keeping his face composed into an impassive mask.

“Show me,” he said. 

The straightforward nature of his words startled you for a second, leading your mind to somewhere else before realizing what exactly he was asking. Somehow, the idea of showing Illumi his own name printed on your skin felt more intimate than what you’d first considered. You shifted awkwardly under his gaze.

“If I show you, will you leave me alone?” you deflected with more bravado than you felt.

Illumi didn’t react with any of the frustration you’d hoped for at your use of his own rhetoric, staring at you in a blank way that made your skin crawl.

“I used my Nen ability on your friends to convince them to tell me what I wanted to know. Show me your wrist,” he ordered, slightly more forceful.

You swallowed hard, wanting to pry further about his exact methods yet sickened by the thought. What Nen ability might a powerful assassin wield?

Deciding to give in, at least on this, you pushed your sleeve up in a jerky movement and held your arm for him to read the letters clearly.

Illumi Zoldyck. Your Soulmate. Did he even have a soul? His black eyes seemed to be windows to the void, empty of light or life. Yet, there it was, literally spelled out on your body.

“So it is true,” he mused, gaze fixed on the black mark on your arm with an expression you had no way of reading. Uncomfortable with the staring, you let your arm drop, your sleeve falling to cover the mark. “You’re my Soulmate,” Illumi said.

“I’m not,” you denied quickly, a burst of scared anger rushing up with the words. 

“You are,” Illumi disputed calmly, an adults logic against a child’s temper.

“So you want me to go with you, huh?” you asked, focusing on the pain of your swollen and split knuckles when you tightened your fists to keep yourself from getting too emotional.

Illumi hummed in assent.

“You don’t have to worry about me dying and killing you, I can take care of myself,” you said.

Illumi’s eyes fell, lingering on all the places you’d gotten hurt while fighting earlier, on your messy and unkempt clothes and hair. You knew for a fact that you looked every bit the street rat you were, but you felt it especially in comparison with his neat and composed form. He didn’t even have to say anything for you to get the message.

“I’m afraid I can’t afford to take that risk,” he told you.

“I won’t go with you,” you said, taking on a pleading tone as you realized the futility of this argument.

Illumi considered this, considered you, before speaking,

“Soulmates are meant to be together, aren’t they? Fate itself has dictated that you you belong to me.” 

“I don’t,” you insisted, split between begging him to leave you alone and being furious that he’d say such a thing.

“No matter how much you struggle, it will end the same,” Illumi pushed, taking a few more steps towards you, “Your life is mine, the evidence is on your arm. Fighting me is pointless, it won’t change anything.”

You met his eyes, seeing the truth swirling in his eyes. Your chest clenched. Was this truly fate? 

“Let me protect you,” Illumi said.

Your eyebrows furrowed as you took a step away from him.

“No.”

He frowned, making a noise of frustration.

“I have no choice, then,” he said, turning away from you. His hair flared dramatically, leaving you in momentary confusion. “Take her,” he ordered in a louder voice. 

Your mouth opened to question him, but you didn’t get it out before you felt the sharp jab of a needle in your neck. The world went black.


	10. Hisoka Morow Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hisoka Morow - Soulmate AU where Person A is unable to see ‘warm’ colors (oranges, reds, yellows etc) and Person B is unable to see ‘cool’ colors (blues, purples, greens etc.) until the first time they touch and are able to see the full spectrum. If either die after gaining the full spectrum, the other goes blind.

The hour was tipped onto the flip side of midnight when you stepped out of your apartment and into the chilly autumn air, but not so far that the world was ready to awaken. The streets were quiet and empty, and darkness wrapped a comforting veil around you as you took to the sidewalks.

Insomnia had driven you out of bed when the desperate chase of unconsciousness became nothing more than a restless and sweaty shuffle over your scratchy sheets, but you didn’t necessarily mind taking to your usual time killer of late night walks. It was actually quite comforting.

Cooler colors reigned supreme in the night, allowing you to ignore the ache you felt at missing half the spectrum, and by extension, half of your soul. Or Soulmate, as it was. You couldn’t help but let out a heavy sigh at that thought. Sometimes you wondered if running away to become a Hunter had been a mistake, that you’d missed your other half by leaving normalcy behind.

You were deep in thought, walking on the street corner that had your favorite pizza place, when you heard a scream. Not an ordinary ‘drunken shenanigans’ sort of yelp, but a bone rattling shriek of terror. Every hair on your body stood on end, your head whipping around and into the direction it’d come from.

When it came again, choked this time, you had no hesitation in acting on the impulse to rush to that person’s aid. Whatever fatigue you’d felt from the lack of sleep escaped your mind as you dashed at full speed towards the sound, body and mind already preparing themselves for a dangerous situation.

Perhaps it was nothing more than Hunter’s intuition that you were walking into a very bad situation, although later you’d look back and wonder if it was fate.

The scream had come from the old and rundown shopping district, which had mainly become a place for homeless. Tonight it was empty, even the rodents had abandoned ship. Screams like that sent those not looking for trouble as far aways as possible, but there was something supernatural about the lack of life around.

No matter what, it meant that you were the only one who could help.

It was only upon arriving at the scene that it occured to you that you probably should have called the police, that it wasn’t your job to fight crime, but in that moment you also knew that police would be useless. Standing in the empty and trash-strewn street was a Nen user. The strongest you’d seen since moving to the city.

He stood over the last remaining survivor, three dead already lying on the ground.

“Stop!” you demanded of him, feet planted firmly and back straight to hide your disgusted fear at the scene. To present yourself as a strong and brave threat.

The killer’s eyes slid to you, his attention diverted from the man he’d been readying to attack. A bloody playing card was poised between his fingers, but that wasn’t the only unsettling feature you noticed.

Aside from his pale skin and some of the colors on his strangely costume-like clothes, the man must have been painted up all in warm colors, meaning that all you saw were varying shades of gray. Even the makeup, a star and teardrop on his cheeks, were gray.

None of that was as unnerving as his eyes, which shone a light silver. What were they in reality, red?

Of course, all of those details were dwarfed by his overwhelming Aura, which you could sense in its frightening entirety. Not only was he strong, but you’d never felt such blood lust. It was terrifying, but it also pissed you off. The man he was fighting was such an insignificantly weak Nen user, he wouldn’t even be a threat to you. It was like watching a tiger rip apart an infant.

“I won’t let you kill him. He’s not even fighting back!” you said, your voice steady in the sudden quiet of the night as you prepared to fight. Some part of your mind whispered that this might be a bad idea, but the part that was angered by the sight of the strong preying on the weak shushed it.

There was also the excitement, as much as you’d deny it. How long had it been since you’d had a proper fight? You’d grown far too accustomed to easy city living.

“Playing hero?” the killer questioned with a smile. Teasing. You scowled at him. “I hate to disappoint you, but these boys wanted to fight me. You might even say that I’m the victim.”

He spoke sweetly, taking on a more feminine manner of speech with exaggerated movements, putting his hand on his chest theatrically. Much like his appearance, it was unsettling, but oddly alluring.

Your hands balled into fists at that useless thought, focusing more on his words. Namely the flaw in logic that the beast in front of you was anybody’s victim.

“This wasn’t a fight, it’s a murder. I won’t let you kill anybody else,” you said, taking a step forward.

Instead of looking any level of intimidated, the killer’s smile widened.

“Okay,” the card disappeared from between his fingers, and he turned to face you with hands extended, “Come on then, hero.”

This is a bad idea, your sane mind told you. And yet you knew your heart was pounding in excitement as much as it was angry vengeance. The thrill of a fight was a distant, but all too familiar rush.

Inhale. Your Aura bloomed from you in a layer of comforting protection, steadying you as you took position to lunge at him. Exhale.

You threw yourself at the strange looking killer, fists first.

He was fast, faster than anyone you’d fought before. He didn’t even need to strike back, simply avoiding each attack. You were able to dodge his first two blows.There was no victory in that, because the third connected, slamming against your face.

Then, you were flying.

The ground hit almost as hard as he did, but you rolled with the painful impact so you could stumble dizzily back to your feet.

Your Aura had saved anything in your face from being badly damaged, but you could feel the hot flow of blood streaming from your nose. You prodded at it with two fingers, stifling a wince. Pain could be useful. It made you want to beat him even more.

Except, when your fingers left your face, they were smeared with blood. Bright red blood. Crimson. Scarlet. It didn’t compute at first, your mind as confused by the color as it was by the instant connection of the words to describe it, but then you looked up.

The killer wasn’t looking at you with a predatory grin anymore, and you realized that he was even distracted enough for the cowering man to have run away. More than that, he was aflame in red - his hair, makeup, the parts of the clothes you’d been unable to see at first, the suit symbols on his top.

His eyes weren’t the red you’d halfway feared, but yellow, and now they were widened in surprise as overwhelming as you felt. Because this meant…

It meant that he was…

“Well fuck me,” you breathed out, the crass words nothing more than an instinctual reaction to such a huge shock. This bizarre and freaky turn of events. The killer -Or were you supposed to think of him as your Soulmate first?- collected himself before you did, his expression of shock replaced by a smile.

“Shouldn’t you at least buy me dinner first?” he asked. You blinked. Some part of your short-circuited brain recognized that as a joke, a stupid one, but the more active part responded before any effort could be made in a retort.

“It’s, like, two in the morning. Everything’s closed,” you muttered, wiping away the rest of the blood from your nose with your eyes still focused on him, drinking in the colors you’d spent your entire life without.

Your killer-Soulmate laughed.

“Breakfast, perhaps?” he asked, stepping over a dead body to come closer. You looked at the corpse, the unreality of the situation hitting you anew at the unsightly reminder to how exactly you’d met your Soulmate for the first time. Because he was a killer. Right.

When your killer-Soulmate spoke next, his voice was less playful, more heavily affected, “Until then, why don’t we continue?”

“Continue?” you asked, looking up with wide eyes, “To fight? Why would we? I mean this is… We’re…” You ran a hand through your hair, not even thinking of the blood you’d be smearing into it, shaking your head with a humorless little laugh.

This was utterly ridiculous.

“Soulmates,” he finished for you, the word colored by an emotion you didn’t immediately recognize. Disdain? “Then at least you can be assured you won’t die, hm? I have no interest in becoming blind. I’m curious to see if it’s more entertaining to fight my other half. Wouldn’t you like to find out?”

“Not interested,” you said, unable to tell how serious he was being but unwilling to find out. “My entire life I’ve waited for this and now-”

You let out a big sigh, turning away from him and the bodies with your arms above your head as you tried to figure out what you were meant to do now. Unfortunately, it seemed that fate was perfectly fine to toss you into this dumpster fire without any helpful hints.

“Disappointed?” he asked playfully. You didn’t respond, eyes closed as you took an even breath. Then, you turned back to him, hands on your hips and back straight. Right. This would be fine. At least he wasn’t ugly.

“I’m Y/N,” you told him seriously, extending your hand.

He took it in his own after a second of surprise, allowing for the strangest handshake you’d ever participated in to happen.

There was blood on both your hands, and the prospect of a man with claws was daunting, but he had a firm grip and warm skin. A bloody handshake was far better than a punch to the face, at least. Perhaps you’d leave that part out when telling this particular story.

If you were ever able to find a person who you could tell this story to.

“Hisoka,” he said.

“Right, Hisoka, so,” your eyes darted to the side, to the dead men. A disgusted feeling rose up in your throat, but you jammed it down. “So, we should get out of here-”

Almost as if they were waiting for you to say that, sirens pierced the air.

You were going to lose it. Not only was Hisoka the most conspicuous man in the whole city, but the both of you were covered in blood and had an eyewitness who’d gotten away.

“Are you fucking kidding me,” you muttered, heaving out another dramatic sigh. “C’mon, I know the best way to get out of here. Follow me,” you told Hisoka, plotting out a way home that wouldn’t result in being caught by the cops.

“Wouldn’t it be more fun to stay and fight them? You did let my toy escape, after all,” Hisoka said, not budging from the spot.

Something within you snapped.

“No it wouldn’t, and if you don’t follow me I swear to God I will kill myself out of spite and leave your sorry blind ass to always regret not just doing what I asked,” you told him, the words tumbling from your mouth with a venom you hadn’t known you were capable of. Hisoka looked surprised, too, but that quickly faded into another smile.

“You don’t need to be so touchy, it was a joke,” he soothed with a syrupy tone, finally following behind you. For your own peace of mind, you didn’t call him out on the fact that you were at least fairly certain it hadn’t been a joke, holding your breath against the awful smell as you picked an alley and began to scale the walls to get to the roof of an abandoned building overlooking the street.

The duel tone police lights were flashing below as soon as your feet cleared the edge, the first time you’d seen both colors. It tripped you up for a moment, mesmerized by the beauty.

Shaking your head to clear it, you began to run. You wanted to get as far away as possible from both the police and the crime, focusing all of your thoughts and energy on getting through the dark city.

Hisoka had no problems keeping up, following you as you wove your way as far as you could on the rooftops before finally being forced to take to the ground. The paranoid fear of being caught still tickled the pit of your stomach, but the both of you needed to clean off the blood, and his instantly recognizable costume needed to get ditched.

Some part of you, the part that still wanted desperately to cling to the ideal of Soulmates and love, pushed you to say something. But there was another part crying louder; the adult in you suddenly feeling a rush of awkward insecurity at realizing you’d found yourself in a situation completely alone with a grown man, inviting him to your home in the middle of the night.

“Where are we going?” Hisoka asked, startling you from your thoughts as the two of you rounded to your building. His sweet voice sent shivers down your back, it was unnerving.

“My apartment is just up here,” you told him, staring straight ahead with the hope of avoiding showing any signs of how embarrassed you felt.

Soulmate or not, the implication was embarrassing enough to make you forget about lingering paranoia.

To make things even worse, Hisoka laughed. The heat in your cheeks must have been obvious, even in the dark, or perhaps it was just how obviously uncomfortable you were.

“What?” you asked defensively, “I don’t know where else to go, but it’s not like I’m trying to force you into anything. In fact you don’t have to come, just make sure to not get arrested,” you said, avoiding his gaze by readying your key.

“My, my, are you always so touchy, or am I special?” he asked. You glared at your lock as you put the key in. He was right. You weren’t normally like this. At the same time, you didn’t normally find out that you were Soulmates with a man you’d just caught killing.

Speaking of that… You ignored the bait of his question in favor of another, hand pausing in pushing open the door, your eyes still glued to the lock.

“Did they actually attack you first?”

You didn’t really want to know, but at the same time, you had to know.

“I told you earlier, didn’t I? They wanted to play a test of courage, but they weren’t nearly as tasty as you… Little hero…” he made a soft sound, something that twisted your stomach in a way that wasn’t altogether uncomfortable, “Fate is cruel.”

You couldn’t help but crack a wry smile as you opened the door to lead him in, sarcastically calling over your shoulder,

“You think?”

His golden eyes fixed on yours, lips forming a smile that sent another round of butterflies through you.

“Mmm. For presenting me with such delicious unripe fruit, yet denying me the pleasure of truly relishing the taste. It’s always the forbidden that smells the sweetest.”


	11. Chrollo Lucilfer Soulmate AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chrollo Lucilfer - Soulmate AU where everybody has a knot of red thread tied on their pinkies, invisible unless focused on. When they come within a certain distance of their Soulmate, the threads connect and lead them to each other. Seeing these threads uses a certain type of Gyo, so all Nen users can see them (and people who can unconsciously use certain techniques).

Some people called you a hopeless romantic. They were, by your estimate, completely wrong. If they insisted on boiling down all of the many things you felt about romance and love, then you’d far prefer the term of hopeful romantic.

And why shouldn’t you be hopeful about romance? You, unlike anybody else you’d ever met, had the unique skill to see the beautiful red threads of fate connecting Soulmates. It was a gift not many others were blessed with, and one that validated everything you knew about love.

You knew, beyond any doubt, that there was somebody out there, somewhere, that was your perfect match.

The proof was everywhere. All you had to do was walk outside and focus on the hundreds of red knots tied around every person’s left pinky to see that the happiest couples were connected by a thin red thread, the tails having connected when they came close enough to one another.

But your proof was, unfortunately, impossible to share. A secret. You had to keep the truth hidden. The few times you’d tried to explain to people that Soulmates were real, and that everyone had a red knot on their finger that would eventually lead them to their other half, they’d scoffed.

That’s how you’d earned yourself the label of hopeless romantic. Less charitably, you’d been called deluded. The worst was when they called you a liar.

So, it was much better to keep quiet about your gift. When friends asked how you were so good at matching them up with the perfect partner, you simply laughed and said it was intuition. When you warned them that you had a feeling it wouldn’t work out between them and a person whose knot didn’t connect to theirs, they never believed you until their heart was broken. Not that you blamed them, really, because you were the first to admit that you were somewhat blinded by the idea of love.

Each day since you’d realized you could see the thread tied around your pinky, and consequently, everybody else’s pinky, you’d checked yours. Most times, you didn’t really expect to see the tail leading you anywhere, but sometimes the sight of the simple and neat knot felt like a punch to the gut.

That feeling was nothing in comparison to the moment you habitually looked down at your pinky with your eyes carefully focused, an idle motion to occupy yourself while you waited for the train to take you home from your work shift, and realized that there was a long string hanging from your finger.

It wasn’t a painful punch, but it left you breathless and unable to think properly for a long moment as you checked and double checked that you weren’t merely seeing things, and that the day had come at last for you be united with your Soulmate.

And then you were racing from the train station, following the trail of red thread through the busy after work crowd. People you passed got mad, but you weren’t paying attention. Your mind could only truly focus on one thing, any other thoughts were pushed to the side.

That frenzy lasted for blocks. Only an hour ago you’d complained about your feet hurting, but now you had no idea what pain might even feel like, there was only the desire to move faster.

Excited nerves bloomed in your chest, mind spinning with all sorts of ideas of who your Soulmate might be, what they might look like. In your frantic enthusiasm, you didn’t even entertain the idea that maybe running straight towards your Soulmate when the general populous didn’t even believe in that idea was ill advised.

No matter what or how, it would work out. You trusted fate completely. Maybe you were somewhat hopeless, after all.

As you followed the thread through the city, the length of the tail getting shorter with every step, some part of your mind vaguely realized that you were getting further from the busier streets.

You were so engrossed in your mission that it wasn’t even until you were already around the corner that you figured out that the thread was taking you to the long abandoned Grossinger’s Street.

Grossinger’s was a district left empty when the city changed the safety laws for public buildings. Since the outdated area was in dire need of expansion anyway, everyone thought it was better to abandon the place, leaving Grossinger’s as some weird ghost town inhabited by drunk teenagers and homeless. Throughout the years, there had been talk about simply bulldozing over it to sell the lots, but such a big, not to mention expensive, public works project had never garnered too much support.

It probably wasn’t safe, but you were far too busy keeping your eyes properly focused to pay attention to the idea of danger. Fate would protect you. True love would keep you safe. Hopeless, indeed.

Neither the sidewalks nor the streets were maintained, and although a majority of the buildings were fairly intact, they were trashed.

Graffiti covered the faded and crumbling walls around you, and most buildings had gaping holes with jagged teeth of glass instead of windows or doors. Finding a place on the sidewalk that wasn’t littered with broken glass, from either knocked out windows or smashed liquor bottles, was a challenge.

It was well known that Grossinger’s was a place for bad things to happen, a place where the bad and lawless gathered, yet you had the distinct feeling that you were completely alone. Even the creeping sense that you were trespassing in some way.

Focused on following the red thread attached to your finger and on pushing any fear or anxiety caused by the eerie streets to the back of your mind with the cover of excitement and hope, you didn’t even stop to consider what your Soulmate might be doing in a place like this.

Even if you had, you wouldn’t have paused or turned back. Some people had God, but you had fate.

Turning a final corner, time froze.

You were here. Across the road, the tail of your red thread disappeared into the pitch black entrance to an abandoned building. Not just any abandoned building, though.

It seemed that your Soulmate was waiting for you in the old church.

Even in the decaying state it was in, the classic Gothic architecture was far more grand than you’d expect of a place abandoned for so long. With the steep black roof drawing stark line against the setting sun’s sky of oranges and reds, it was dramatic and eerily lovely.

Oh, how that sight made your hopefully hopeless romantic heart swell.

Confidence wasn’t something you always had. You were a lover, not a fighter. But now, you felt bold beyond measure, like you could take on the entire world. Or perhaps just one person within it.

Nothing in the world could convince you to turn back as you marched across the street.

Nothing, except the sudden appearance of something sharp against your neck and the disturbing feeling of a body behind yours.

It happened so quickly. You’d been sure you were completely alone until the moment you weren’t anymore, as if the person had magically transported behind you. The threat of a blade on your neck kept you from making any more noise than a frightened squeak, your body stiff as a board.

“You take another step, I’ll kill you,” the man behind you threatened in an accent you didn’t recognize, his point made when he pulled the blade further against your neck. You could hardly comprehend his words through the onslaught of mortal fear, struggling to even make sense of this sudden turn of events. “Tell me why you here,” he muttered.

“I’m… I..” you stuttered, mind jumbled with dread. Trying to explain, you held up your left hand, pinky extended. At the poor explanation and a display of something you logically knew nobody else could see, the knife pressed even further into your neck, breaking skin.

“What is it, Feitan?” a second voice asked casually. Your terror-widened eyes shot to the side to see a young man with blond hair and a smile. Where had he come from?

“Help m-” your words were cut off by a stifled cry of pain when the man behind you -Feitan- jerked the knife.

“A trespasser.”

“Oh, so that’s all,” the newcomer said, seemingly unconcerned with the situation, “She’s weak. Shouldn’t we just send her away with a warning?”

“You can’t!” you said, horrified more by that idea than by the knife at your neck. The outburst registered as a mistake the second it was out of your mouth, sending you backtracking in fear, “I-I’m looking for my Soulmate… see?” you added quickly, holding up your hand under the foolish hope that they would be able to see the scarlet thread leading inside, too.

“Your Soulmate?” the blond asked in surprise, coming closer to look at your hand. Then, his eyes widened.

“Y-you can see it?” you asked, shock outweighing relief for a second. He stared at you with a critical frown for a second, the most tense and fearful moment of your life.

“It’s strange for a non-user to be able to see fate’s threads, but she’s not lying. Hurting or killing her would be against our rules,” he said to Feitan. You couldn’t help but flinch as he raised your hand for Feitan to see more clearly, sighing as he did. “What a bummer, I was hoping to be next.”

Feitan made a quiet noise of dissatisfaction, either at the other man’s comment or at having to lower the knife, but he freed you. You took several panicked steps away, putting a hand on your neck to feel the shallow cut. It was bleeding. It hurt.

“Having a Soulmate is pointless, they’re nothing but a distraction from the duties we all have to the Spider,” Feitan said, his dark and scary eyes fixed on the other man over a skull emblazoned bandanna that covered half his face.

“I agree to an extent, but the benefits of being united with your Soulmate are too good to pass up,” he replied. Then he turned to you with an even wider smile, “C’mon, I’m curious to see who it is.”

You blinked at him, a moment passing as your mind sorted through the fear to remember why you were in this situation at all. Then it struck you, your panicked eyes focusing once more on the red thread around your pinky and the tail that still lead inside the church.

“You know about Soulmates, too?” you asked, skipping a bit to catch up to the blond and leave the frightening Feitan behind.

“I’m surprised that you do, that’s pretty rare for people like you,” he replied jovially.

The question of what ‘people like you’ and ‘non-user’ meant, as well as the million other things you wanted to know, died on your tongue as the two of you entered the wrecked remains of the church, and the group of people sitting within it.

Although you were aware that there were other people in the church, and that all of their eyes were focused on you like an uncomfortable spotlight as soon as you entered, your own eyes were fixed at the point where the red trail ended in a knot on the pinky of the man standing at the end of the aisle.

Your Soulmate, a man with slicked back dark hair and a giant coat covering a shirtless and strikingly pale torso. He wore an unreadably stoic expression, his dark eyes locked on yours from across the church.

If you had to say truthfully, it wasn’t love at first sight. Perhaps because the first sight of a man like him left you unable to really think anything, not only because of his odd appearance, but because of how intimidating his flat gaze was.

Then you blinked, and when you opened your eyes you decided it was love at second sight. Your heart was beating unbearably loud in your ears, your palms sweating. You had to break the silence, you had to say something.

“Hello!” you got out, falling into a deep and nervous bow in introduction without even thinking about it. The words continued to spill from your mouth, uncomfortably loud and embarrassing in the silence. “My name is Y/N, I’m very pleased to finally be able to meet my Soulmate.”

If the church had been silent before, it was a void of sound after you straightened out.

“Seriously?” a man asked incredulously somewhere from your right.

You winced, the words you’d just spoken finally registering and embarrassment truly striking. But then a pair of dark eyes fell from your own, focusing on your pinky and following the red tail up until he came to the same conclusion you had, raising his hand where the red knot attached to yours was tied. His eyes widened slightly in something like surprise before returning to you.

Silence stretched on, utter quiet in the church save for the sound of footsteps as your Soulmate left the ruined pulpit to walk down the aisle, everyone watching without making a sound. The unreadable and intense expression on his face sent your pulse skyrocketing, your mouth drying out as you tried to remain calm.

He stopped when he was finally in front of you, studying you in a way that left you feeling exposed in the worst ways possible.

“Shalnark, may I borrow your keys?” he asked, his relatively soft voice not at all what you expected when he spoke to the smiling blond

“Sure,” Shalnark responded, tossing his keys with a jingling sound, his eyes flicking between the two of you with curious energy.

“I’ll be back soon,” your Soulmate promised, slightly louder for everyone to hear. Then he looked at you, “Follow me.”

There was no point in arguing, especially since you were glad to leave the church and all the strange people within it. This situation made no sense, you were pretty sure you’d just embarrassed yourself beyond repair, and hundreds of questions surfaced in your mind as you followed him out into the darkening twilight.

But he didn’t speak. Not even when you were a safe distance from the church. You didn’t really want to talk first, so instead you kept up beside him and tried to contain your thoughts.

In an effort to figure out what he might be thinking, you tried to discreetly peek at his face, which was illuminated by the sunset. Although you had no idea what that stoic and straightforward expression meant, you stopped caring after a moment and started admiring. He really was attractive, strange style choices and all.

“What’s your name?” you finally asked, speaking before thinking. He paused, dark eyes looking down at you.

“Chrollo Lucilfer,” he finally replied, mouth twitching into a small smile. It made him look younger, less intimidating. It made your breath catch.

“Chrollo Lucilfer…” you repeated curiously. You liked his name. It was strange, but he was wearing a coat with St. Peter’s Cross on the back, which was also a little strange. “Where are we going, Chrollo Lucilfer?”

“You walked here, didn’t you?” Chrollo asked.

The question caught you off guard, but you quickly responded,

“I did.”

“You can’t walk back in the dark, it’s unsafe. I’ll drive you,” he explained reasonably, leaving no room for argument.

“Oh,” you responded awkwardly, “Thank you.”

Chrollo stopped at what looked like a run down shed, or maybe a garage. That was probably smart, parking on the street in this area was a bad idea. The door made a loud sound when he opened it up, revealing the car inside.

Biting your lip nervously, you grabbed his elbow before he went to the drivers side, looking at him with as serious an expression as you could manage.

“Are you upset? Or disappointed?” you asked. The questions hurt even to think, but you needed to know, pain or not. Things had gone absolutely nothing like you’d always hoped and dreamed, the dried blood on your neck proof that that sad fact “You can tell me if you are, please tell me, because I-”

“I’m not disappointed,” Chrollo interrupted you, meeting your gaze steadily. He was wearing another small smile, “I’m actually quite interested to learn why fate has tied us together. And why now of all times,” he told you, “I’d also like to learn for myself if what I’m told about Soulmates is true.”

“What’s that?” you asked.

“That they provide a key to understanding your true self.”


	12. Pariston Hill Prompt: “Damn, you’re tight. Am I your first? Perhaps I should have been gentler…”

The sounds of the Association Halloween party were still quite loud in the office you stood in, but the room was dark and isolated enough for you to feel separated from the safety of the crowd. Perhaps that was a good thing.

Pariston stood behind you, your back pressed tightly to his front white he used both arms to hold you in place. He had a hand pushed past the waistband of your underwear, the skirt of your costume hiked up to your hips to allow him access. If someone were to walk in, they’d see you exposed, displayed indecently as you were pleasured by one of the most hated men in the Association.

As much as Pariston teased you, as many increasingly flirtatious comments he made, you’d never expected this. Or perhaps you had… Why else would you respond to his taunting messages and go looking for him in the dark building?

“You’re not fighting,” Pariston noted, the smile so clear in his words you didn’t have to turn to know, “In fact-”

His fingers dipped lower, sliding across the slick wetness his touch had brought and drawing a needy gasp from your lips.

“My, my,” Pariston cooed happily, “It seems like you’re enjoying yourself. Could it be that you like this game better than the ones we usually play? It certainly has its allure..”

You whimpered in response, both in helpless distress from the situation and at the overwhelming pleasure. No more could you help that sound than you could help the way your hips rolled into his fingers as they trailed back upward to rub your clit once more.

Pariston’s touch and the feeling of his body against yours was horribly intoxicating, but you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was wrong. Doing something so obscene not only in someone else’s office and the place you both worked, but with a majority of your coworkers only a room away, too. 

Yet, you found yourself unable to voice a serious objection and end it.

“I-” you began breathily, but you couldn’t continue, forced to choke down a moan when his fingers sped up. A familiar heat was coiling in your core, something that made it difficult to think of anything other than getting more -getting off.

“If you make too much noise, someone might hear and come to investigate,” Pariston warned you with faux concern, his words spoken into your ear and raising goosebumps across your entire body. “You wouldn’t want them to know how wet you get for the man you claim to hate, would you? I’d hate to ruin your reputation…”

You gasped, those words still managing to horrify you, even if the feeling was easily overshadowed by lust.

“Pariston… This is-”

“Is something the matter?” he asked you mockingly, his fingers falling still. You couldn’t help a gasp in protest, your hips pushing forward. Need surpassed reason.

“Please..” you asked unsteadily.

Pariston laughed and pulled his hand away, that ominous sound and disappointment adding a spark of anxiety into the hot feeling of lustful and twisted excitement. That was the only warning you got before he roughly pushed you down, your torso hitting the surface of whoever’s desk you’d been standing in front of.

“Pariston, wait,” you said, your sudden nerves showing through in the high pitch of your voice. You felt cold without his torso against yours, and apprehension was building quickly as you realized where this was headed. He wouldn’t actually do this  _here_ , would he? You’d thought there’d be  _some_ boundaries considering the location.

You heard clothes being adjusted and pulled side. Pariston  _really was_  going to do this.

He couldn’t be your first. Not Pariston Hill, a man who’d never been anything but mocking and cruel to you. When you got your arms underneath you to push yourself up to tell him so, he used a hand between your shoulder blades to keep you down.

“Are you scared?” Pariston asked with a condescendingly sweet voice, hooking his fingers into your underwear to pull them down. It left you in a disgustingly lewd position, bent over and bare. 

“What did you think would happen when you let me lure you away and into the dark? Isn’t this what you wanted?” Pariston asked, his voice lower and filled with a type of dark amusement that made your stomach twist.

“Please-” you gasped when you felt the strangely smooth sensation of the tip of his dick sliding through the wetness of your folds. The issue wasn’t a lack of lubrication, because you were plenty wet, but that you weren’t ready. That you really were nervous now, and that dark tone he’d adopted wasn’t helping.

“Please, I-I’m-” those breathless words cut off suddenly, your teeth digging into your arm to stifle the wordless cry of surprise at the sudden pain when he pushed in. It hurt, a uniquely strange agony of being split in two, and Pariston wasn’t very considerate. 

“ _Damn_ ,” he swore in an oddly affected tone under his breath, his hips having stilled after filling you completely, “ _You’re tight. Am I your first?_ ” he asked, taking your muffled noise of assent as an answer before continuing in a softer voice, “ _Perhaps I should have been gentler…_ ”


	13. Illumi Zoldyck + Escapee Wife Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is sort of a prequel to the next chapter, but I wrote them months apart and this takes place before Illumi and his wife are even married. (Before I moved to tumblr I had it posted on Quotev, in case you feel like you've seen this) I love my Sweet Assassin Boi~

There were many reasons as to why you wanted to meet Killua Zoldyck, why sneaking behind your fiance’s back to track him down was seen as a worthwhile task in your eyes. **  
**

In all the time you’d known him, Illumi very rarely spoke of his younger brother, especially of the reasons why Killua had cut contact between himself and the family. When he did, however, his love for Killua was blindingly obvious.

Illumi loved Killua more than he would ever, or maybe even could ever, love anything or anyone else. Not that he seemed to be aware of his feelings, which was what made you so curious, why you felt like understanding their relationship was important to ever understanding Illumi.

There was another reason, too. You wanted to know the truth to the things Illumi wouldn’t tell you. It wasn’t like you could ask any of the other family members, but there was a chance Killua would answer, if you managed to find him.

That was the issue. Tracking down a trained assassin and Hunter turned out to be an incredibly difficult thing, especially since you had to do it all in secret. If Illumi found out what you planned to do, he would undoubtedly stop you.

It was lucky, then, when you got a tip about Killua’s location while Illumi was away. The thing that ended up being the tipoff was the confusing child, the one that ‘wasn’t’ a Zoldyck yet had been the catalyst for turning Killua away from the family altogether. Alluka.

She was one of the great many things Illumi didn’t speak of, and your curiosity was very unwelcome. The expression he’d worn the one time you’d brought her up had frightened you enough to never make an attempt to again, but it had also stoked your curiosity greatly.

You purchased the tickets to the airship traveling to a nearby city in secret days before, the airship you knew Killua and Alluka would be taking. Finding a way to ditch the guard Butler Illumi had assigned to keep tabs on you was difficult, but not impossible. If you had any hope in not pushing Killua to flee or attack, you had to come across as non threatening as possible.

All through check in you felt paranoid, constantly checking your disguise and peering over your shoulder. It wasn’t until the ship was boarded and on its way into the air that you felt like you could breathe.

Unsurprisingly, finding a teenage boy with striking white hair and an energetic dark haired child in tow wasn’t that difficult. Even if you weren’t certain based on the physical information you had on them both, Killua’s Aura was unmistakably that of a Zoldyck.  

They sat at a table eating sweets, Alluka’s eyes wide in wonder as she looked down at the ground below. By approaching them, you’d ruin their peace. That thought made you pause, almost made you back down altogether, but you had to know.

When you sat at the table, Killua’s cold blue eyes snapped to attention, his Aura flaring ever so slightly. You knew, then, that he’d been aware of you already, even with all the care you’d put into masking your presence. He really was Illumi’s brother.

“Who are you?” Killua asked, calling Alluka’s attention the fact that you’d joined them.

She looked at you without any hostility, the curious eyes of an innocent child.

“I’m (y/n),” you introduced yourself with an uncomfortable smile, all of the words you’d planned on saying fleeing your mind when confronted with the situation in reality.

“Did my family send you?” he asked, frowning.

Sharp kid.

“No, but-”

“Alluka, let’s go sit somewhere else,” Killua said, interrupting you and standing up, taking your hesitation as confirmation.

“Wait, Killua, I just wanted to talk! I’m, well, I’m getting married to.. To Illumi, and I just wanted to-”

If looks could kill, the moment you mentioned Illumi’s name, Killua would have slaughtered you.

“Are you serious?” he asked in disgusted disbelief.

Whatever confidence you’d had was gone just by one look at the hatred in those blue eyes. The answer you’d been looking for by meeting with Killua was right there, shining brightly with a disturbing amount of malevolence.

“Why? Did he put a needle in your head, too?” he asked in an accusing tone. A needle in your head?

“No, I-” you began, only to be cut off.

“Do you think you’ll gain something by marrying into a family of assassins?”

“That’s not it-” you insisted, your voice raising above his.

“Are you just that much of an idiot?”

“Stop!” you demanded, frustrated at the bad turn this interaction had taken so quickly. People near you turned their heads at the loud exclamation, breaking the tense atmosphere with how embarrassed you became under the heat of their pointed looks.

Killua finally sat back down, giving in to Alluka’s not-so-gentle tugging on his arm as he regarded you with poorly concealed shock.

“Don’t tell me… You’re in love with him,” he said, his tone turning soft and muted in horror, which you saw reflected in his eyes. This was worse than the hatred, because now Killua was looking at you with pity.

“I am,” you replied with as much strength as you could, “And that’s why I’ve come, I guess, because I walked to ask-”

“I don’t have anything to say to you -or him,” Killua said.

“Please at least listen-”

“I don’t want anything to do with any of those people.”

“They’re your family.”

Killua’s expression hardened.

“No, they’re not. He’s not.”

That shut you up, the finality of that statement.

“You’re a complete idiot if you think he’ll ever love you,” Killua said, and although his voice was hardened with hatred, you could hear the genuine warning, “He’s unable to care about anyone. The only thing he knows is how to manipulate people and kill them.”

Those words put a sick feeling in your stomach, plainly voiced with complete confidence by the person you knew Illumi loved the most. You didn’t miss, either, the way Killua’s eyes flicked to Alluka for a fraction of a second when talking.

“That’s not true,” you denied, but your voice lacked strength.

This time, Killua didn’t even have to call you an idiot, his expression said it all. Disgust, hatred, pity, fear, all of it shone in his eyes as they looked at you.

“You should get away from him while you can,” Killua told you honestly. You could tell that he was saying this out of some actual concern for you, which made the words hit that much harder.

“What did he do to you?” you asked, really more of a plea to help you understand.

Killua’s expression became ice, his Aura flashing darkly. Alluka, who’d been silent this whole time, tensed up with worry, her big concerned eyes fixed on her brother.

“The only thing he knows how to do, the same thing he’ll do to you unless you leave,” he said darkly.

You swallowed hard.

“I want to understand-”

“Don’t try and talk to me again, or else I might actually get upset,” Killua said, interrupting you by standing up once more, “C’mon, Alluka.”

The odd pair up and left, exiting the lounge area and leaving you with a table of half eaten sweets and a mind of whirling emotion.

All of your good intentions, your hope to learn something from the exchange, were gone. No, more than that, Killua had just validated all of the things you’d feared about your relationship with Illumi, shattered the thin layer of glassy denial you’d been using to protect yourself from your creeping doubts and anxiety.

You sat at that table for the rest of the trip, completely still to the outside world while you tried to think your way through everything. You needed, first and foremost, to get ahold of yourself.

Illumi was going to be upset when he learned of what you’d done. Even though you hadn’t learned anything of importance from Killua, you’d sought out the answers to questions he’d purposely kept from you. The consequences of that weren’t something you’d considered before, caught up in the pursuit of the truth, but now the reality hit you in full.

Keeping your emotions in check, keeping a level head, was important right now. You didn’t have the space to think about Killua’s words or warnings, or to get too deep into your feelings about your relationship. You needed to be calm.

When the airship touched down at its first stop, your stop, you stood woodenly from your seat and made for the exit. Since you were getting off here, you doubted Killua and Alluka would be, but that didn’t matter. Whatever answers you’d hoped to get from him had been given.

What had you expected?

You robotically followed the crowd of other people into the air conditioned terminal, your eyes down until you saw two pairs of overly glossy black dress shoes standing in front of your way.

It didn’t really surprise you that the two Butler’s who’d been assigned to watch over you had come to collect you right away, but it made it even harder to get a grip on yourself.

“Did you have a good trip, ma’am?” Ven asked with a tone so overly respectful it bordered on comical, making his concealed anger obvious.

It hadn’t occurred to you earlier, but running away from them would probably get them in trouble, too.

“Yes,” you replied blankly, allowing them to lead you through the airport without arguing. All you wanted to do was go home and curl into a ball, the whole prison guard escort thing didn’t phase you right now.

“Master Illumi has come to pick you up,” Ven said as the three of you approached the entrance. “He’s waiting with the car.”

Your steps faltered, a solid block of ice dropping into your stomach at those unexpected words. You’d anticipated at least a day to organize your thoughts and calm your emotions, you weren’t ready to face Illumi yet.

“I thought he was away…?” you asked, your voice brittle with sudden fear.

Neither Ven nor his counterpart had any reply to that, simply shrugging and averting their eyes from your discomfort as they continued to escort you through the place.

The prison guard metaphor felt more appropriate than ever, your steps heavy and heartbeat loud with an anxiety nobody but Illumi could ever manage to draw out of you.

What were you supposed to tell Illumi about your conversation with Killua? How were you going to explain the reason you’d disobeyed him, meeting with his brother behind his back? It’s not like you had any real excuse, and your guilt and doubt would be obvious the moment he saw you.

Leaving the airport, you saw right away the sleek black car waiting for you, it shone menacingly under the sun. Could a car be menacing? That thought had no time to develop before Ven opened the door for you to climb into the backseat, closing it behind you with a sound that made you flinch involuntarily.

Your fiance sat waiting, completely silent as you slid into the seat next to him, your shaking hands clasped together. The tension was suffocating.

Illumi was staring at you, his dark eyes burning into your skin even though you’d averted your guilty gaze to the spotless black carpeting on the floor. The driver peeled away from the curb, his unfaltering eyes kept forward. His presence was so insignificant he might as well have not been there at all.

“How was Kil?” Illumi asked, breaking the silence with his ever moderate tone. The question made your mouth go dry, the many different ways you could interpret it making knowing how to respond nearly impossible.

“He seemed… well,” you said with forced nonchalance.

“Did you enjoy meeting him?”

Enjoy…? You finally dared a glance up to attempt to read Illumi’s expression, but his smooth features gave you absolutely no clue as to what he was thinking.

“Well… I guess?” you said, your uncertainty of Illumi’s mood threatening to send you into cardiac arrest.

“What did you talk about?”

These words made you pause. It was the most obvious question, and the one you absolutely didn’t want to answer. If you told Illumi what was said, he’d see your conflict, he’d guess your thoughts and your guilt. Last time you’d admitted doubt hadn’t been an experience you wanted to repeat.

Illumi contemplated your lack of answer, his casual demeanor unchanging.

“I suppose you’ll try to hide it from me, won’t you? That’s fine, I doubt he trusted you enough to say anything important. That’s the only reason why I allowed it.”

Your heart stuttered, eyes widening as you looked up at Illumi.

“Allowed…?” the word was practically whispered, forced up through a dry throat and full of disbelief.

“Of course. You didn’t really think you’d be able to hide something from me, did you?” Illumi sounded genuinely surprised by the notion.

“How long did you.. Did you know?” you asked, voice pinched.

“Ever since you started looking for him.” 

Knowing Illumi, you had plenty reason to doubt it, but was that pity in his voice? He’d fooled you into believing his obliviousness from the very beginning, then. That idea turned your stomach.

“Why? So you could study how I escaped or so you could see how I reacted?” you asked with an overly bitter tone to mask your discomfort.

“Both. I was impressed, you almost lost the tail I had on you today,” he remarked. You could swear that you could detect a trace of pride, like it had been nothing more than a training exercise.

You clenched your teeth, you hands balled into fists. Illumi was right, it was ridiculous to assume at any point you’d be able to trick him. It made you feel helpless, like a child attempting to rebel against an adult who found the tantrum mildly entertaining.

Minutes passed by in silence, your upset thoughts swirling around your mind in pointless circles.

“Of course, this does create somewhat of a problem,” Illumi said, breaking the quiet and catching your attention. “You willfully disobeyed me. I can’t easily forgive dishonesty, or your disobedience in searching for secrets that could potentially put my family at risk.”

Put the Zoldyck’s at risk? Somehow, you doubted that. Not that you would dare argue. Instead, you closed your eyes, biting back a comment about his own dishonesty. Double standards were a thing Illumi didn’t seem to understand.

“Why does lying matter if you find out anyway?” you asked bitterly under your breath, face turned away from him. 

A cold hand grasped your chin, turning your face to look at his. The unexpected touch made you flinch, but Illumi held you in place. His eyes were dark and unreadable, intimately close in the small confines of the backseat.

Your pulse fluttered in a panicked beat as you looked straight into his expressionless face, knowing he was searching for something with that intense look, but unsure of what.

“I know that lying to me hurts you, is that because of love?” the question was nearly analytical, his grip too strong to pull away from and making escape from the dark spotlight his eyes created impossible. You nervously licked your lips before responding.

“Yes.”

“Then why do you do it?”

Why indeed. Your fists tightened in your lap, fighting the desire to try and actually break his hold. It was better to endure it, wasn’t it?

“I… don’t know,” you replied nervously.

Illumi weighed that answer for a long moment before releasing you, obviously still dissatisfied.

Perhaps it was that dissatisfaction with your lack of answer, the frustration he felt at having to ask you to explain your feelings and reasons, that made you absolutely sure that Killua was wrong. Whatever else Illumi felt, all of the millions of things about him you would never be able to understand and feared, you didn’t doubt that he loved you. That he loved Killua.

You swallowed hard, considering your next words carefully.

“I thought that if I met Killua, he could help me understand you better. I didn’t tell you because I thought you would stop me,” you explained.

“Did he?” Illumi asked curiously.

“Not in the slightest,” you replied honestly, letting out a heavy sigh. The only thing this day had done was further confuse you, add to the chaos that was already heavy in your overburdened mind.

Killua had told you to leave, to escape before it was too late. Looking at Illumi in profile, his blank face turned forward with introspective thought and his fingers settled on his chin, you knew that it was already too late. That sight alone made your heart ache, the most painful parts of love threatening to consume you.

You were a fool. Such a fool.

“I’m sorry,” you said after a long lull, surprised by how much you meant it, but also at how easily you’d given in. “Please forgive me,” you muttered, your voice on the very edge of cracking. You kept your face turned downwards, was it in shame in such an easy defeat or in disobeying him in the first place?

You could tell your sudden apology surprised Illumi somewhat, deviating from your usual period of pouting before giving in. These feelings were far too big to be solved by any amount of pouting. Why fight the inevitable?

Overcome by needing to be loser, you fell into him, pressing your face into his shoulder to hide your face.

Illumi was stiff against the sudden attack, which you were usually kind enough to warn him of beforehand, but didn’t throw you off of him, which was good. He awkwardly rubbed your back as you fought to compose yourself.

Once, his clumsy affection had felt uncomfortable, but now it was a familiar and welcome touch simply because it was his. Any other would have felt strange and unwanted.

It would be easier if Illumi was as Killua said, if he were a man who knew only manipulation and murder. But you knew better. 

You knew that the real danger laid beyond those simple and sharp pieces of who Illumi was. It was in the awkward touch as he rubbed your back, the genuine fear you knew he had of harm falling upon those he cared about. Those were the things that would end up killing you.

You knew that, and you were sure Illumi knew it, too, but that wouldn’t stop you from letting it happen anyway.


	14. Illumi Zoldyck + Escapee Wife Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First part was an answer to an ask for some dark Illumi angst/suspense, second part was in answer to how Killua would react to the situation, and the third was the much requested part 3. Enjoy~

You looked at your red and swollen eyes in the dirty gas station bathroom’s mirror, setting down the scissors on the edge of the chipped sink and shaking your freshly dyed hair to find any stray pieces of your newly fashioned cut. It wasn’t great, but it would suffice. As much as it had hurt you to cut and dye your hair, it was still one of the easiest sacrifices you’d made so far.

The motion of fluffing your hair, mussing it up, brought a fresh onslaught of memories in crystal clear definition. You saw Illumi tucking stray strands away from your face, felt him running his fingers through it, ruffling the top with a smile.

The pain of those thoughts was physical, a gut wrenching ache and a piercing pound of a headache on your forehead. For a few seconds, you were winded. Unable to breath, as if you’d taken a blow to the chest. Why did it hurt so bad? Why did you miss Illumi so much? Why was it that all you could remember was the good moments of your relationship, as if the bad were insignificant?

_You’re in pain because you need me._

Illumi’s voice was so clear, clearer than your own.

“I don’t,” you replied.

_You do._

“I left you. I don’t need you,” you told him, your voice the only one in the small bathroom.

Blinking quickly, you shook your head again, unable to look in the mirror any longer. You needed to move, anyway, you’d lingered here too long.

Tossing all the hair dying supplies into the plastic shopping bag that already held all of your cut hair, you paused before adding the last evidence of your bathroom stop.

Three blue and white sticks lined up on the sink’s edge, three positive symbols glaring up at you. They were why you had to run, no matter how you felt or what you remembered.

You couldn’t allow Illumi to know that you were pregnant. His family couldn’t ruin your baby in the same way they’d ruined theirs.

You were a realist. If Illumi and his family -your family, now-  were looking for you, you would be found. But they didn’t know about the baby you were growing, so you didn’t need to hide forever, only until you found a way to save it. A maternal instinct you’d been unaware of having flinched at the thought, but it was kinder than the alternative.

You tied the plastic bag and stuffed it into your backpack, pulling out the beanie you’d found and pulling it on. There were cameras in the gas station proper, so you left through the window, dropping into the grassy area behind and making your way towards the bus station.

Paranoia was all consuming, it had been since the moment you’d been able to find your way off of that mountain. You felt no eyes watching as you made your way through the quiet mid-morning town, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there.

Illumi could be anywhere, but where you felt him the strongest was within your own mind. Like a ghost, he haunted you, hiding around every corner and his voice whispering in your mind. It was like you’d gone crazy, six days on the run and already cracking up.

Pregnant, scared, and crazy. You could sell the rights to your story as a movie, it’d make for a fantastically twisted drama. Or a horror.

You shuttered, walking faster. You needed to make a call before getting on the bus.

It was a weekday, so at the edge of town, the only establishments being a gas station, restaurant, and the bus station, you were one of the few walking around.

The emptiness lent an uncomfortable atmosphere as you stepped into the phone booth attached to the ticket station, pulling the door shut and taking a deep breath.

It’d taken you this long to think of a person you could reach out to for help. It had to be somebody Illumi would know about, but somebody who owed you a favor. Eventually it hit you.

Sal Marney from the pawn shop in Yorknew. He’d needed help on several occasions for his shady business practices, and at the time you’d been an excitable attack dog trying to build street cred.

Finding his phone number had been surprisingly easy, far easier than finding inconspicuous ways to get from the Republic of Paokea to the Yorbian Continent, at least. You put in the money for an international call, dialing in the numbers carefully, breath held in anticipation.

Prayers answered when, on the third ring, you heard the telltale sound of the phone being picked up. You could have smiled in relief.

“Hey Sal, it’s me. Uh, I know it’s been awhile, but I need to call in those favors you owe me. It’s dire,” you said, your voice far more confident that you’d thought it could be.

“Hm. I was hoping you’d come in person,” an unexpected voice said from the other side, injecting ice water into your veins. His voice was distorted by the poor quality phone, but it would be impossible for you to ever mistake Illumi’s voice. “This is just as well. Tell me where you are.”

You felt frozen, a cold sweat breaking out on your forehead.

“How did you know?” you asked, pressing a hand to the wall to steady yourself.

“When my Mother informed me of your escape, I was already in the area. I knew it was only a matter of time before you arrived.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat. Although you’d specifically been asking about how he knew about Sal, you realized you didn’t want to know. Was there any secret you’d ever kept from him?

That helpless thought was refuted when your hand unconsciously dropped to your stomach. The biggest secret of them all, but there was no way he could possibly know.

“If you’re not here, then I’d assume you’re arranging transportation from the Mimbo Republic,” Illumi mused. At least he was wrong on that count. Still, you forced yourself not to react, to provide any tells.

“I’m not going to tell you,” you said, injecting as much strength into your voice as possible.

Illumi didn’t respond to your statement, suddenly switching trains of thought.

“You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?”

Your body physically jolted at the random question. It was natural, of course you’d be thinking about the husband you ran away from, but something about it felt pointed.

“No,” your refusal rung false even to your own ears, too quick on the tail of his question and too defensive.

“That’s a lie, isn’t it?” Illumi asked, and you could imagine that he was smiling now. The memory of that expression brought an uneasiness to your stomach.

“It’s not,” you replied, lacking both conviction and strength as your eyes nervously scanned the street outside of the phone booth, the view smudged by the dirty glass. Nothing, nobody. You needed to end this phone call. You needed to leave.

It was like the phone was glued to your ear,

Illumi laughed, a sound that sent chills down your spine.

“You’re thinking about me because you know running away was a bad idea. You need me. Tell me where you are,” he said, so full of confidence that you’d bow to his will.

You closed your eyes, fighting back the thoughts telling you that he was right, the yearning to give in. It’d be so easy. Your mouth opened to speak, to do as he said, but you stopped yourself.

Instead, your hand smoothed out against your stomach again, as if drawing strength from it. With that shallow strength, you voiced  thoughts that had been building up for far too long. Words not born of anger or hatred, but of pain and sadness.

“Why would I tell you anything?” you asked, already sounding choked, “So you can lock me up for a few weeks in the dark, starve me until I can’t fight you anymore? Or are you finally gonna string me up like you did Killua, strap me to the parrilla and light me up for daring to defy you?”

At hearing Killua’s name, Illumi hissed out a sharp breath. You’d hit one of his few weak spots, but there was no satisfaction in hearing that sound. No matter what he’d ever done to you, you’d never gone out of your way to be cruel to Illumi, knowing it would hurt you, too. But your edges were jagged and cutting, and the the pain didn’t stop you from continuing.

“You drove him away, and now you’ve driven me away, too. The only people who will ever stay with you are the ones you fill with needles. God,” you gasped, close to tears now. You’d cried more in the past week than in your entire life. “I was so stupid. I should have listened to him when he told me to leave, when he warned me about you… I should’ve…”

Unable to continue, you closed your eyes, throat swollen with the sobs you pushed down.

Grainy silence passed on the line, broken only by your uneven breathing.

“I’m done, Illumi. I can’t be with you,” you finally whispered, pleading and broken. Not for the sake of your unborn child, now, but for yourself.

More silence.

Illumi hummed, a passive sound lacking any real response to your outburst.

It wasn’t a threatening sound, yet it sent a thrill of fear through you.

He’d been away for weeks before you’d even escaped, giving you time to forget. You’d allowed yourself to think of him as your husband first and foremost for too long, but he was far more than that.

Illumi was dangerous. You recalled it now, the sight of his empty black eyes, swirling hypnotically. The image sent a splitting pain into your head, the headache you’d been fighting on and off for the past week returning in full force. It made you double over, pressing your cold and clammy hand to the spot.

“Unfortunately, that isn’t your choice to make. You are not like Kil. You’re disobeying the rules you agreed to when you swore yourself to me. Disregarding the rule of our family,” Illumi said, his voice light and unconcerned, hiding the weight of his words. “Even if you refuse to tell me where you are, I will find you and bring you back. By force, if necessary.”

Tears were finally spilling out of your eyes, although you weren’t sure if they welled up out of emotional or physical pain. Both, probably. They gathered on the cheap plastic payphone, wetting your cheeks.

A pathetic feeling rose within you, the desire to simply beg him for a bit more time, to admit the truth of what he’d said but ask anyway. To do that, though, you’d have to tell him why you wanted more time, and if he knew the truth… Well, you didn’t want to know his reaction to what you were planning.

Instead, you opted to ask in a more vague sense, make him believe it was only you and him who mattered in this interaction,

“Please stop looking for me, Illumi. Between us.. It’s…”

Illumi was quiet for another moment, waiting for you to finish that thought. When you didn’t, he spoke.

“You’re my wife. You belong to me,” Illumi said with a matter-of-fact tone, “You’re not capable of living apart from me. Without me, you have no place in the world. Nothing in it will offer you any joy or satisfaction. There is nothing that will fulfill you, nobody who will know you as I do. Who will love you as I do.”

“That’s not true.” The tears were coming in full now, the splitting agony of your skull doing nothing to drown out the crushing effect of his words.

“Of course it is. That’s how I’ve taught you to be. You will only feel whole when you return to me,” Illumi finished, the absolute logic another blow to your crumbling resolve. You needed to hang up, you needed to separate yourself from him before he wound you back up into his lies.

Before you truly cracked.

“Tell me where you are,” he said, ordered. Were you imagining the edge of pleading, perhaps even desperation in his tone? Your eyes, which had been closed, opened. You scanned the street once more, it was empty, swimming with your tears.

“Goodbye Illumi,” you said, hanging the wet phone back on the hook.

Then you collapsed into yourself, falling to your knees in the confines of the dirty public phone booth, sobbing tears you hadn’t even known you could still shed. You needed to move, to feel urgency in running away and leaving the city, but all you could feel was heartbreak.

You wondered, too, if some part of you didn’t hope for Illumi to find you, then, to end the game and soothe the broken pieces you’d shattered into.

 

* * *

 

 

“Hello?” Killua sounded different than you remembered, although perhaps it was just because of the light-hearted greeting, given before he knew who was calling.

You felt guilt at having to do this, but he was the only one you could trust to not be compromised by Illumi. The only one who might be able to help you in your mission.

“Killua.. Do you remember me?” you asked, speaking quietly so as to not be heard in the relative solitude of a booth in a diner. You’d bought the burner phone earlier, unable to even look at another phone box.

“Why are you calling me?” Killua asked in the hard voice you remembered, “I thought I told you to never approach us ag-”

“I know!” you stopped him, frantic at the idea of him hanging up, “Please, I- I need your help.”

You scanned the rest of the diner, five people total not including the chef in the back, but they were undisturbed by your minor outburst.

“My help,” Killua repeated flatly, “Why would I help you? I warned you to leave Illumi before it was too late. I won’t get involved in the affairs of the idiot to married my brother.”

“Please Killua,” you begged, “I ran away because I- I’m pregnant. There’s nobody else I can trust to help me.”

“Help you?” he asked, tone icer than before, the relative calm of someone saving an outburst until you’d given all the information.

“I can’t have it,” you admitted quietly, feeling pain of betrayal -to Illumi and to the child- of saying those words aloud, “I love Illumi, I love him so… “ your voice cracked unappealing, the tea you’d been sipping unable to sooth your throat from days of tears. A dull thud of a headache cracked against your skull. “But I can’t let him have it, not after knowing the truth.”

You’d never be able to unhear the excited way Kikyo explained how her boys were raised, the vile details Illumi had so conveniently left out each time you’d discussed children. That couldn’t happen, not to your child.

“Illumi will kill you if he finds out,” Killua told you.

“I know,” you replied. Of course you knew what Illumi would do to anyone, even you, for killing his child. It was something you could accept. Death at his hand didn’t seem so frightening anymore.

Killua sighed, a heavy sound for a boy so young. It made your heart ache.

“I can’t help you,” he said lowly, but not without regret, “If Illumi knows that I was apart of your plans, he’ll see me as an enemy.”

“He wouldn’t h-” hurt Killua? The both of you knew that was untrue, “You’re different,” you finished lamely.

“You already know, don’t you? It’s different when you’re responsible for the ones you love, I can’t fight this battle,” Killua said, sounding every bit like an adult explaining something to a child.

You closed your eyes, hand covering your face as you tried to compose yourself from his painful, but not unexpected, refusal.

“What do I do?” you asked plaintively, feeling utterly lost and alone.

“You already know what you need to do,” Killua told you, then his tone shifted, hardened, “But, If you let him have your child -if you let my family have this child- I will never forgive you.”

The threat settled, the honesty of his words and the reason behind them finally something you could understand. Although Killua couldn’t see it, you nodded.

“I understand,” you got out, voice so quiet you weren’t sure if he could hear you.

The line went dead.

 

* * *

 

 

He’d found you. Illumi found you, of course he did.

You’d thought you’d have more time. You’d thought-

You were such a fool. Over and over you made these clumsy mistakes, making a mess of one of the most important missions you’d even undertaken. But it was too late now. Far too late to fix them. Far too late to regret.

There was no going back, there hadn’t since you’d hung up that payphone. No, not since you’d met Illumi.

Your hands were stained with blood, drying into an ugly rust color and flaking from your nails. The body count on your name was a mile long, yet somehow this murder felt different. Personal. You’d never killed somebody you’d seen as a person, a person you could recognize as somebody’s child.

But killing the Zoldyck butler had been unavoidable, hadn’t it? You didn’t want to kill him, you really didn’t, but he would tell Illumi your exact location and so of course you had to. It was the only way to ensure a desirable outcome.  

All you needed was one more night. One more night until your doctor’s appointment the following day. Then your mission would be a success, and you’d be nothing more than an empty dead girl walking. Then you could finally face Illumi. Despite your despair in acknowledging the only possible ending your escape, that idea of meeting his dark eyes one last time brought you solace.  

Down all the way to your bones, you were tired. A weariness that extended past your lack of sleep, your lack of real food or enough water. The headache piercing your forehead hadn’t let up, getting worse each day, worse every time you envisioned black and swirling eyes. 

Even your Aura was weak, your spirit beaten down by everything that had happened the past two weeks.

Two weeks? It felt like two years. When the doctor confirmed the date of your appointment, you’d been speechless with shock.

These buzzing thoughts were interrupted when you heard a stirring among the group of homeless you were squatting with for the night, urging you to open your paranoid eyes, body going tense with nerves.

At first, you’d been afraid to hide with the homeless underneath the relative cover of the underpass, scared you wouldn’t blend in, but the truth was that some of them looked to be in far better condition than you were.

But now you felt your chest tightening, a sixth sense telling you that something was wrong, that you needed to leave.

There weren’t many homeless under the roadway, most of them fighting off the night’s chill around the big burn barrels, But it was in the way they were muttering amongst themselves, the nearly unnatural way they were moving.

Was it your paranoia? Did you dare leave this easily defended spot based on those finite details? If you were wrong about this spot being unsafe, there was a chance you’d be running straight into a trap.

You felt a chill run down your spine at the uncertainty, suddenly feeling moments away from choking on the sour scent of unwashed bodies and oily smoke. Pregnancy made your already keen sense of smell a weapon against your body, and the sickening odor was making you ill.

Did you leave? Did you run? Where would you go?

Eyes watery and blurry, your panicked gaze shot around the underpass, looking for an explanation for your discomfort.

They weren’t tending the fires properly. They weren’t tending them at all. In fact, it almost smelled like-

“What are you doing?” you shouted in disbelief at the man who was holding the silvery body of a propane tank above the fire. He looked up at you, his hood falling aside.

Needles. A Needleman. Some of the other homeless looked up at your question, sounds of shock and horror arising when they saw what he was doing. There was number of them who didn’t react, though, pushing away those who moved to stop him with garish expressions and needle-addled brains.

How had he done this? Why… Why couldn’t he wait just one more night?

“Master Illumi said to alert him if you arrived,” the man told you, his eyes wide and empty. Glassy under the orange dance of the flames beneath him.

Later, you could say that your choice to escape was logical. You had been standing closer to the exit than to the center of the underpass with the Needleman, after all. The truth was, however, that you hadn’t even thought to stop him. You’d pushed yourself too far, your over-exhausted brain was unable to analyze the situation and find another solution.

The headstart wasn’t enough to get you a safe distance away, but your weakened Aura protected your body from the worst of it. Even still, the explosion blew you forward.

Hitting the ground knocked all the wind out of your lungs, your ears ringing from the boom of the blast.

When you could finally pull in a full breath, it was marred by a convulsive fit of coughing, your body trying to expel the thick stench of smoke from your lungs. It smelled like chemicals, it smelled like death.

Frantic thoughts pushed at your brain, the need to move. To run and get out of here before Illumi showed up, but the urgency was curbed by the inability to breathe. The heat was so intense, a threat against you weak Aura, and the smoke muddled your mind.

And then there were hands on you, pulling on your arms and torso, pulling you up despite your weak struggling. All at once there were many people, all of them holding you, keeping you upright as your head rolled and stomach lurched with a fresh punch of nausea.

You fought them, trying to shake off the dozens of hands, but it was impossible. You were too weak, far too weak, and the Needlemen had the strength of a person who didn’t care for self preservation. Even when you broke a wrist, even when you got a solid hit against a nose, they didn’t stop grabbing and holding you still.

It was too disorienting, all of it. Your hearing felt muted, clogged up. There wasn’t enough air, not when you were trying to breath and cough at the same time, not when you were trying to fight.

And then from the darkness, like some sort of oxygen-deprived hallucination, he appeared. Your eyes were still dazzled by the brightness of the flame, still running an endless torrent of tears and stinging terribly, but you saw the glint of light reflected in the needles on his clothes, the shine of his black eyes. Within those twin pools of void, you could see the reflection of the fire, rendered in miniature.

Followed by even more stumbling and clumsy Needlemen, Illumi had no expression. His pure white skin was painted by the reds and oranges, his dark hair flowing behind like some sort of dramatic cape.

Illumi looked like a creature from Hell itself.

You’d never seen anybody so beautiful.

The ghost of Illumi, the pale imitation your mind had conjured while you’d been away, was nothing but a cheap and lifeless puppet compared to the man in front of you.

Seeing him now, you didn’t know how you ever thought to run away, to leave his side and betray him. Like a fallen angel, Illumi’s salvation was damning, yet you desired it with the passion of a long ruined addict. You stopped fighting the hands holding you still when you saw him. It was over. It was all over. You had failed, but finally you could rest.

“You killed a butler, I was surprised,” Illumi said when he was finally near enough to be heard. The lack of greeting wasn’t surprising, but for a second you wished for one. You wished he’d skip all of this and allow you the refuge of his arms. “You did well, if he hadn’t been wearing a tracker, I wouldn’t have found the body.”

You drew in a shaky breath, a feeling like rubbing sandpaper against your throat. The mention of your murder brought a fresh wave of nausea to your stomach.

“I didn’t-” you paused, clearing your tortured and hoarse throat to speak clearly, “I didn’t have any other choice,” you told Illumi in a voice that was raspy and painful.

He tilted his chin up, as if trying to understand some deeper meaning of your words. You didn’t like that look. That look meant he knew something. What was it? What conclusion could he have come to based on the limited information? You wanted to understand, to be able to think clearly and guess what was going on in his mind, but it was impossible.

“You’re hiding something,” Illumi stated calmly, without doubt and without expression, “That’s why you ran away, why you fled to a city you knew I would be keeping an eye on, and why you killed that butler.”

Illumi was smart to do this now, when you were weakened and vulnerable, head dizzy with smoke and easily restrained by nothing more than his puppets. That didn’t make it hurt any less, a slow horror closing your throat. A quiet despair because you would tell him, there was no other way for this to end.

“Tell me what it is that you’re hiding,” Illumi said, offering a hand in your direction, “And I’ll reconsider the severity of your punishment.”

The offer, both the words and his extended hand, were so tempting. It would be so easy. Better to not fight anymore. Perhaps his joy at the news would earn you forgiveness. Perhaps he’d understand your fear, for once.

Your eyes closed. Behind your eyelids, you saw blue. Passionate blue flames, glaring and disgusted.  _I’ll never forgive you._

But you were already unforgivable, weren’t you?

“Master Illumi, the police will arrive shortly,” a butler cut in after a moment, breaking your silence. Illumi made a noise of frustration.

“Okay,” he replied. You opened your eyes, but Illumi seemed preoccupied with thought, a hand on his chin.

“Hmm, it seems you won’t tell me on your own,” he mused, “And I can’t trust that you won’t lie to receive favorable treatment. Who could you have shared your secret with…”

Illumi’s eyes flicked up to yours, his hand dropping from his face and extending up as if he’d figured it out.

“You contacted Kil for help,” Illumi announced, the confident cheerfulness in his voice freezing your blood. “Mm, my wife and younger brother conspiring… We should pay him a visit, then, no?”

“N-no, Illumi, that’s not…” your breathing was rapid, face contorted in fear.

_I’ll never forgive you_. But Killua had his own people to protect, you couldn’t expect him to keep your secret. You couldn’t even ask him to. You would never earn his forgiveness, anyway, that was the consequence you’d deserved since the moment you’d fallen in love with Illumi.

“I’m pregnant,” you confessed, voice cracking and tears that had nothing to do with the fire burning your eyes anew as you averted your gaze.

“Look at me,” Illumi demanded lightly, voice devoid of inflection. You did, lip trembling like a child as you met his dark and empty eyes. He studied you with an intensity of likes you’d never felt, but as uncomfortable as it was, you had no ability to break away on your own. “You ran away with my child?” he asked, voice eerily even and calm.

Dangerous.

“I didn’t know for sure until.. The day we spoke on the phone,” you told him, your raspy voice meek. He considered that for a moment too long.

“Let her go,” Illumi dismissively ordered the Needleman keeping you in place. Before you could even stumble, unbalanced without the support of dozens of hands, Illumi was holding you.

You couldn’t help but stiffen at the arm wrapped around your waist, the other hand holding your chin up. So close, he was so close and solid. Composed and collected in complete opposition to your frazzled and weak self. The hand on your chin was cold, icy.

“My child….” he mused, a strange wonderment in his voice.

Sirens cut through the air, piercing and startling.

“Master Illumi…” the butler stressed. He didn’t respond, holding your gaze a moment longer.

“I need to take my wife to a doctor,” he ordered the butler, keeping you close to his side as he walked to the treeline. Beyond the trees you could see the waiting car, orange and reds dancing on the shiny black.

“A doctor..?” the butler asked, following behind.

“One specializing in prenatal care,” Illumi said. “Arrange for transportation home first thing tomorrow, as well.”

“Got it,” she responded professionally, peeling off to do as told. Another Needleman opened the door for the two of you to get in the backseat of the waiting car, and you didn’t fight this either. There was no point in fighting to begin with, had there? It was futile. Useless.

The door slammed, the sound of the gavel sentencing your execution. It wasn’t a bad sound.

Blue and red lights were flashing, dim through the tinted windows, as the car drove the opposite direction. Distantly, you wondered what the police would think of the dozens of zombie-like Needlemen, but just as quickly as it occurred to you, it was gone.

In the safety of the dark, it no longer mattered if you slumped against Illumi, your face pressed into his chest so you could replace the sickening scent of smoke with his clean smell. He accepted the affection, a steady arm wrapped around you as he issued orders to the driver.

By the time he addressed you again, you were nearly asleep. You couldn’t remember a time you’d ever been so exhausted, nor the last time you’d felt so safe.

“You’ve learned the truth, haven’t you? You can’t live without me,” Illumi said softly. You hummed absently, unable to fight off the overwhelming need to sleep now that everything was over.

“I can forgive you this time…” Illumi said, pausing until you gave another hum of assent. When he continued, his voice was different from his normal light tone, a low and dark sound against your ear, “But if you abandon our child and betray my trust ever again, I’ll have no choice but to remove your will to rebel… A broken wife and mother is far better than a disloyal one, no?”


	15. Illumi Zoldyck Prompt: If you'd stop making so much noise, I might not have to be so rough.

Illumi was mad at you, you could tell that just through his gaze. The two of you were on the job, as it were, but the opportunity to get to the target wouldn’t arise until after midnight. Two hours of nothing to do but blend in among the elite at an event ball.

He hadn’t told you explicitly not to dance with other men, you thought it would be okay. A way to pass the time since you had to pretend to not know Illumi. Yet you felt the burn of his glare all the same, breaking away early with some forced excuse.

When you met Illumi’s dark eyes across the room and he tilted his head in a ‘follow me’ gesture, it was hard to fight the nervous butterflies it gave you, but you knew better than to ignore a request from him. Considering the circumstances, it wasn’t like Illumi could do anything more than reprimand you.

After waiting an appropriate amount of time so as not to be obvious about it, and in the most casual way you could, you made your way towards the dark archways he’d disappeared through.

The bottom floor of the venue wasn’t closed, allowing the wealthy to find some respite in smaller and more intimate rooms off the ballroom proper. Finding Illumi wasn’t difficult for you, even though he’d made a pretty confusing trail that led you past even the most private hiding spots.

The room he’d chosen was small, a storage room for unused furniture. It was dark, too, only the narrow windows offering any illumination for you to see with. The music, so faint, still reached this place. It provided a haunting lull as it yawned through the sweeping halls.

Illumi was waiting, his expressionless face not giving you any insight into what he was thinking. You decided to start in with something lighthearted, hoping to brighten the tone.

“If I promise you every single dance for the rest of my life, will you forgive me?” you asked with a smile. Several heartbeats of silence passed, and then,

“No. Get on your knees.” Illumi spoke so casually he may as well have been commenting on the decor, but you knew those words to be a demand you didn’t want to refuse. Still, it was jarring to hear in this public setting, without a lockable door, and crowd so nearby. Unlike him.

You laughed nervously, your stomach flipping and pushing an embarrassed heat up your chest.

“Illumi, what ab-”

His head tilted to one side, expression unerringly stoic and hair sliding to fall with the slight motion.

“Are you refusing?” he asked. Those words made your insides twist in knots, setting your head shaking before you could even cognitively respond.

You were glad the floor was spotless, at least you wouldn’t have to worry about your expensive dress being compromised. Avoiding Illumi’s eyes with a hot blush that had burned its way all the way up to your cheeks and ears, you fell to your knees in front of him.

“Illumi?” you muttered nervously, hesitant, looking up at him with your hands hovering over his belt. A hand dropped into your hair, careful not to mess with the careful styling, and his dark eyes turned down to look at you. When you realized that was all the response you’d get to your anxious plea, you took a nervous breath and got to work on undoing his pants.

He was already half hard, which didn’t surprise you. Illumi wouldn’t ask for this unless it was what he wanted. Thinking that felt surreal in this situation, that Illumi would be this reckless. Well, you supposed such illicit things did have a certain appeal.

Generally, you would go slow, taking your time to use your tongue and really make it count. But not now. Now, you took the velvety head of his cock into your mouth and began sucking with purpose, working the shaft with your hand and bobbing your head in a steady rhythm.

“Deeper,” Illumi told you. Nothing about his light tone was particularly demanding or cruel, but you recognized another order that he expected to be obeyed.

Despite that, you refused. He was already getting you to blow him in public, he couldn’t seriously expect you to take him in your throat. You’d have said so, but two hands in your hair made it impossible to pull off. The words you would have used were turned into nothing more than an annoyed hum against his dick.

Illumi made a small sound of irritation at your refusal, pushing himself deeper when you didn’t do it yourself.

It made you choke, your newly freed hand pushing at his clothed thigh in panic and louder sounds of protest filling the small room.

He didn’t react, pulling back a bit to allow you a moment to breathe before repeating the motion, pulling your head into him until your nose hit the neatly trimmed hair at the base. You only protested louder at the treatment, both hands at his thighs and pushing.

“Stop being so loud,” he told you, frustration finally having edged its way into his even tone as he continued to use your mouth. You didn’t stop, hoping his frustration would make him stop.

Illumi sighed again, obviously aggravated, before getting a better grip on your hair in a way you knew would mess it up and beginning to face fuck you in earnest. The roughness effectively ended all of your protesting, you had to focus only on keeping yourself from choking and finding a place to breath between each snap of his hips.

“ _If you had stopped making so much noise…. I wouldn’t have to be so rough,_ ” Illumi told you, his voice showing signs of being affected by his building climax.

Despite everything, that slight strain in the way he spoke sent a jolt of heat through you, as it always did. To witness the unraveling of a man who was of otherwise unflappable had a uniquely erotic appeal, even like this.

Illumi’s breathing was harsh, his fingers flexing against your scalp and pace no longer steady. You knew he was close, you could feel him chasing it with every erratic thrust.

He didn’t make any sound when he came, burying himself in your mouth so you’d have no choice but to swallow his seed as it hit the back of your throat in hot spurts. The feeling was more uncomfortable than the bitter taste, but not unbearable.

When he was done, Illumi took a deep breath, but you couldn’t tell if it was in satisfaction or lingering irritation. Either way, he released you.

“You did well,” he complimented you casually as he pulled away and adjusted his clothes. You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and hid a frown at his unintentionally condescending words. 

Before he left, leaving you to clean yourself up, Illumi patted your hand with a smile that in no way reached his eyes. “I forgive you.”


	16. Illumi Zoldyck Prompt: I won't be as nice the next time you misbehave.

What Illumi didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. You kept repeating those words to yourself, like some sort of mantra to sooth your guilt.

The thing was, maybe you could understand his lack of trust in certain people, but keeping you from seeing even your closest friend was going too far, wasn’t it? You knew Illumi was just doing it to protect you and his family, and you could understand that, but you also knew there was no danger with Vel. You’d been on enough dangerous missions with her to know you could trust her with your life.

Illumi didn’t exactly see it that way. But if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything. And everything would be fine.

You kept telling yourself that, but your stomach said otherwise. Since the second you’d agreed to find a way to meet up with her, your gut had been twisting in guilt. Perhaps because the whole situation rang all too clearly of a teen sneaking away from their parents. Except, the parental stand-in was a Zoldyck Butler, and tricking her took more than simply saying ‘goodnight’ and shoving pillows under the blankets.

At least Illumi was busy -off somewhere else in the city on a mission he didn’t need assistance on- because you’d never be able to trick him. As it was, you were doubtful of your success, constantly looking around and keeping your senses sharp as you walked down a street lined with bars and crowded with people.

Excuses and apologies buzzed through your head in the case of being caught as you made your way towards the address Vel had sent, those annoying thoughts battling with the indignant frustration that Illumi would be so overprotective to disallow you from seeing somebody you’d known for years. It wasn’t like you were stupid, or even that you couldn’t protect yourself in case anything did actually happen. Besides, he had friends. Even if he didn’t call them so.

Somehow, that didn’t make you feel any less guilty.

There was no need to double check you’d reached the right place when you came to a stop in front of a dingy looking dive bar with a green neon sign and a below-ground door. This was exactly the type of place Vel would pick, you couldn’t help but smile to know she hadn’t changed.

It was the type of place that even the staggering drunks didn’t dare brave, a bar that served the cheapest of both liquors and thrills. As you made your way down the cracked and uneven concrete steps, the oppressive scent of cigarette smoke hit you in a thick, stale assault. Perhaps even worse was the sickening sour odor that always clung to these places, the stench of vomit and filth. Maybe a touch of blood and sweat.

That wasn’t all, though. Your hand paused before grasping the door knob, your entire body tensing as you felt  _something_. Hesitation on a spiritual level. Something was wrong about this place, that certainty hit you before you’d even touched the door.

Just as clearly as you could feel that something was terribly, terribly wrong inside the bar, you could feel that Vel was inside, too.

Run. The instinct was strong, a nearly physical pull to leave the frightening unknown and return to safety. To avoid risk. That’s what Illumi would tell you to do.

But Vel was your friend.

Forcing yourself out of the stillness of hesitation, you threw the heavy green door open, pushing past the toxic cloud of smoke and unpleasant scents and taking a heavy breath to steady yourself. You surrounded yourself in a protective shroud of Aura, every sense sharpened to the foreboding sense of wrongness.

Yet, whatever you’d expected to find within the place to support the terrible feeling you had was missing. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

The bar was just as disgusting as any other dive you and Vel had drunkenly enjoyed, loud with the voices of the intoxicated patrons and the terrible music blasting from old and crackling speakers. A few men, tattooed and smoking, played pool while most of the others sat at the long, grimy bar. Everyone was laughing and talking, creating a generally good -if crass- mood.

Vel was one of those at the bar, her unmistakable blonde hair turned to you. The familiar gold was tinged with the alien green light that came from the colored bulbs fitted over most of the overheads, but it was obviously her.

Nobody had moved or acknowledge your entrance, continuing on as they were, but you couldn’t relax. The urge to run had only doubled now that you were entrenched in the feeling of unease, unable to identify a threat you could sense with clarity.

Vel was your friend, though, you at least at to get her away from… whatever this was.

You took a deep breath, not relaxing your Aura as you walked towards her. Vel was saying something to the bartender, her voice painfully familiar. Nostalgic. You reached out to her, speaking loudly over the music,

“Vel, I think we need to le-”

A sudden silence hit you, with all the subtlety of a brick to the face.

The music had been stopped, the voices hushed and laughter gone. Even the sounds of the balls clacking around on the pool table ceased. Complete silence. Everyone had fallen into an uncanny stillness.

You froze, too, stunned that the lack of sound could feel so much more oppressive than any loud noise had ever been. More terrifying.

Vel turned to you, her face contorted in an expression that looked kind of like pain. There was something abnormal, something eerily off about her eyes. In the silence, you could hear your heartbeat, the rush of blood in your ears.

“Illumi is very unhappy with you,” Vel told you in a serious voice.

A second passed, comprehension slow in coming to you. And then,

“Excuse me?” you choked out, mind stuttering in disbelief.

Vel’s eyes, glassy and scarily empty, slid from you to something behind you.

It wasn’t necessary, you’d felt him as soon as he’d decided to reveal himself, your body tensing up and every hair standing on end.

“Hey,” Illumi said, his greeting so casual you could almost believe he was simply meeting up for drinks. You turned to him, somehow still managing to feel shock in seeing him, pale skin glowing green in the odd light and dark eyes empty. He looked inhuman.

“I finished up early,” Illumi said, words casual and face devoid of expression as he took smooth steps towards you. His was only movement in the entire bar.

Illumi had created a crowd of Needlemen props for this trap, you realized, and Vel…

“But when I returned, the butler told me you’d left. I wanted to see what you thought was important enough to risk yourself.”

You swallowed hard, struck with guilt.

“Illumi…” you said, voice trembling ever so slightly, “I’m so-”

“When you felt something was wrong, you should have run away. There isn’t any reason for you to knowingly enter a dangerous situation, nor anything worth risking your life,” he cut in callously, walking past you.

“She’s my friend,” you defended yourself, other feelings rising to the surface despite the guilt, “And besides, it’s my life!”

Illumi came to a stop behind Vel, his dark eyes fixing back on you. “A Zoldyck doesn’t need friends, you don’t need friends. It’s obvious now that they only make you weak,” he said, a grim finality to his words.

With a gentle motion, he brushed Vel’s golden hair from her neck, revealing a line of needles. She stayed perfectly still, dead eyes on you. Just as gently, just as gracefully, Illumi set his fingers around the needle heads and pulled.

The second they were gone, Vel dropped lifelessly, her torso falling heavily onto the unclean surface of the bar. Some combination of a gasp and a hiss left your lips as you watched, eyes filling with tears and hands clasping over your mouth.

Illumi seemed unconcerned, wiping the bloodied points of the needles off on Vel’s shirt without expression, stray tendrils of black hair falling in his face. You took an awkward step back, unable to believe this betrayal, this terrible act.

“Illumi…”

“Your life is mine, wasn’t that the vow you made?” he asked, eyes rising. You gaped at him, those words had twisted the knife even further.

“You killed her,” you said stupidly, unable to form any other words.

“You should be grateful,  _I won’t be as nice the next time you misbehave._ ”


	17. Illumi Zoldyck Prompt: Your body belongs to me as much as your mind does.

Illumi had a way of making you feel like a scolded child, sometimes. You hated the feeling. There was no reason why you should have felt like you were the one in the wrong for wanting to leave Kukuroo Mountain, it wasn’t wrong for you to want to stretch your legs a little.

But you weren’t allowed to act without Illumi’s permission, and since he’d been gone on a mission for several weeks, you hadn’t been able to ask. Now that he was back, it was clear that hearing of your several attempts to leave had upset him.

“I could have run… Still could, actually,” you said suddenly, boldly breaking the silence of your shared bedroom. It was the first thing either of you had said since dinner, and the words trembled with unshed tears. You spoke for no other reason than to force him into reacting, into returning even a shred of the frustration or anger you felt from his controlling actions.

Illumi, of course, gave you no such satisfaction.

“You won’t,” he dismissed your threat without hesitation, his words stinging painfully in their believed honesty. Your eyebrows furrowed further, your arms tense in the hold you had around your knees.

Seemingly blind to your growing anger, Illumi didn’t pause for even a second as he methodically removed all of the needles he’d been carrying into a dish on the vanity, uncaring that you watched with angry eyes from your spot at the edge of the bed. The plinking sound of metal on glass was uncomfortably loud in your ears.

“Do you think I’m incapable?” you finally asked, your voice was intended to be strong and firm, but got smeared by the tears you were fighting. It had an embarrassing and thick quality as it forced its way out of your throat.

Even hearing that, Illumi didn’t spare you a glance, undressing with his usual methodical grace.

Finally, fed up with his dismissive act, you threw yourself to your feet. “Hey!” this time your voice was strong, but disgustingly childish. You knew you were overreacting, that behaving like a child wasn’t the way you’d convince him to stop treating you like one, but you couldn’t help it.

Illumi wasn’t startled, turning to face you with mild curiosity on his face. He’d stripped down to only his pants, but you forced yourself to not clam up just because he was half naked, meeting his unreadable eyes with your own angry gaze.

“Then why haven’t you left?” Illumi asked simply, statically, gesturing smoothly to the door. It wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t anything, really, just a question.

Just a question, and yet it took all the the fight from you, drained you of your anger.

Your mouth opened to begin rattling off excuses, the various reasons that would logically explain why you hadn’t made a break for it, but both of you knew that’s all it’d amount to. Excuses. Lies. The truth you’d been avoiding, the real reason for your anger, was so obvious it hurt.

Illumi took a step towards you, intense with the victory of your silence. Then, he did just about the worst thing he could possibly do; Illumi smiled.

“I wasn’t certain before, but now I know for sure.” His hand reached out, the cold knuckles brushing against your cheek with a familiar affection. You blinked as an escape from his dark, unavoidable stare, surprised to feel tears overflow and wet your skin.

“You won’t leave unless I say. You want to obey me,” he said simply, without even a shred of doubt.

Illumi’s smile dropped with his hand, his words settling in the room with undeniable finality. You looked down, wiping your face of both the tears and the lingering sensation left by his hand, making an effort to compose yourself.

“You’re wrong,” you finally said.

“I’m not.” Illumi sounded very nearly bored to have to refute your weak lie. “Now, come,” he said, stepping closer to you still, his hands going to the hem of your shirt to pull it off before you could protest.

“What are you…” you asked with wide eyes, freezing up. The need to ask was more from surprised curiosity, because  _of course_  you knew where this was headed. Of course you knew, but the sudden shift had you reeling.

Illumi steadied you by pulling your eyes up to his once more.

Something swirled deeply within his dark gaze. His eyes held an unquestionable hypnotic power that left you still and helpless. Spread across his sharp features there was no romance novel-esque pout of love or lust, but an expression that was intense and undeniable.  Illumi’s body was close enough that you could feel his warmth, smell the sharp minty scent you associated with him as his hands roamed your skin with a touch light enough to make you shiver.

“ _Your body belongs to me as much as your mind does_ ,” he told you, and looking into his eyes, you knew Illumi was right.


	18. Illumi Zoldyck Prompt: Don’t think of it as a ‘punishment’… it’s more of a lesson.

It wasn’t really your fault that you’d lost communications with Illumi while you were on your last mission, although you probably could have tried a bit harder. You hadn’t thought it would be such a big deal, honestly. You’d assumed Illumi would handle it reasonably when you explained how you’d had to change your plan because of the target’s fortified defense and why you hadn’t thought it would be necessary to tell him. In your line of work, things like that happened. You’d thought he’d understand. **  
**

Your mistake.

Perhaps if his intended punishment were a physical one, you could have withstood it, but this was worse. Illumi knew you could tolerate torture, so he found what you couldn’t tolerate. Complete isolation. It was cleaner, easier, and more effective. Last time you’d been at the end of your rope after only a week, how long would he keep you in the small confines of that dark hole this time?

“Illumi, this is unfair, please just-” you plead with him, desperation clear in your voice.

“You agreed to the rules I gave you, did you not?” Illumi cut you off, his voice light and casual despite the completely blank expression he wore. It was no longer the contradiction between his face and voice that made your skin crawl, but the creeping dread you got by meeting his unreadable dark eyes when he was upset like this.

“Yes, but-”

“Then by breaking them, you agreed to the consequences. Tell me, if an enemy of my family were to target you in the time before I was able to locate you, what would you have done?” Illumi asked, giving you pause.

The both of you knew that your abilities were not suited to direct combat, and that a person targeting the Zoldycks would stop at nothing to get answers from you if that’s what their goal was. You hadn’t even thought of that.

Illumi nodded, taking your sickened expression as his answer. “By disobeying me, you put not only yourself, but my family at risk.”

“But nothing happened,” you argued in weak defense, but your defeat was clear.

Illumi said nothing, taking a step towards you and placing one hand on the top your head, petting your hair with a gentle touch. You closed your eyes, all of the fight leaving you. There was no point in trying to fight against Illumi, anyway. When he spoke, his voice was lower, a tone verging on something more intimate.

_“Don’t think of this as a ‘punishment’… it’s more of a lesson.”_


	19. Hisoka Morow Prompt: How else would they know you belonged to me?

Your senses were dulled slightly with liquor, softening the harsh edges of your vision and making everything slightly more tolerable. You sat among a group of people who worked with you, almost-strangers who had been nice enough to invite you out for the night. **  
**

Now, you almost regretted your choice of agreeing. You were more than aware that you were poor company, and angsty drinking was not usually the best choice. While they all talked and laughed together, you sat to the side, downing shots of tequila and pretending to be apart of the group.

In truth, you couldn’t stop thinking about _him_. No amount of alcohol would change that.

Not that you couldn’t try.

With that in mind, you got up to head back over to the bar, only to collapse into the chair when your dizzy head spun dangerously, your legs giving up before even trying.

“Slow down, you-” the girl sitting next to you began to say, but her good-natured words cut off with a choke, her eyes going wide as she looked behind you.

It said a lot about how much you’d had to drink that you didn’t even feel him until he was right behind you, although maybe that was on purpose. He could be sneaky when he wanted to be. Your group went silent, staring with varying degrees of horror at the man who’d been your most recent nightmare.

“I’m hurt,” Hisoka said, the smile clear in his voice without you even having to turn around and look, “You didn’t even invite me.”

There was no point in flinching away from the hand he placed on your shoulder, his fingers curling in surprisingly gently. Instead, you sighed, pressing a hand to your fevered cheek.

“I was actually just about to go,” you said, taking a deep breath to brave the dizziness you’d brought onto yourself and standing. Things didn’t go any better than last time, but when the world began to tilt to the side, it wasn’t followed by the pain of hitting the floor. Hisoka had his arms wrapped tightly around you, like an embrace.

In his arms like that, your face all but pressed into his chest, you could smell his familiar musky warm amber scent, annoyingly pleasant to your alcohol soothed mind. He was warm, too, completely unlike the drunken fever-hot feeling of your skin.

“Why don’t you introduce me to your friends, hmm? I’d  _love_  to get to know them,” Hisoka said, his voice vibrating in the ear that was pressed to his chest. It was really an intimate position, all things considered, and in plain view of people you worked with. Embarrassing.

“Stop,” you protested, your voice unsteady and slurred as you wriggled to get out of his grip.

“Oh? Why?” Hisoka asked, the pinnacle of innocence. But when he continued, his voice was lower, meant only for you,  _“How else will they know that you belong to me?”_


	20. Hisoka Morow Prompt: I'll let you out when you've learned your lesson.

You didn’t mind when it was violent, in fact you preferred it that way. When sex was nothing more than some sort of fucked up brawl, there wasn’t as much room to think, to be forced to confront what you were doing and what was happening. Pain made the whole thing easier to bear, and it was the only time you could get the satisfaction of lashing out at Hisoka for what he’d done to you, regardless of his enjoyment at being hurt.

Unfortunately, at some point, Hisoka realized how you felt.

Maybe it was because you’d put up more of an actual struggle at first, rather than simply accepting that violence was apart of the foreplay. Or maybe it was as simple as his sadistic glee encouraging him to find new and increasingly terrible ways to torture you. Making you suffer seemed like it was still his favorite game to play, and it had been since that ill fated day you’d first had the misfortune to draw the attention of those creepy golden eyes.

So, no, you didn’t mind when sex was violent and left you battered and bruised for days, because it was still better than when Hisoka was in the mood for something more ‘romantic’. A shallow caricature of intimacy. Sex between lovers, not between a girl and the hated psychopathic magician who had ruined her life.

His mouth trailed down the side your neck, making you shiver. With the same eerie gentleness, his hands roamed over your body, not yet slipping beneath your clothes. Teasing. Taking it slow. You had your eyes closed to it, entire body taunt in a vain attempt to block him out.

“You’re tense. Perhaps I should do something to help you relax, hmm?” he asked in a sugar sweet tone, one of his hands sliding lower with obvious intent. You grit your teeth, refusing to give in. You felt Hisoka’s frown at your stifled reaction, pulling his face away to look at you.

“Let me see your eyes,” he demanded, an order you knew better than to deny. Stealing your expression, you met those demonic yellow eyes you despised so much.

Whatever he saw in your gaze -Fear? Hatred?- made him smile, his hand finally finding its way beneath your clothes to tease the bare skin.

“Good girl.”

A red hot flash of fury hit you at hearing those words, that terrible praise you in no way desired from him in conjunction with his even more unwanted touch. Before you could even think about what you were doing, your fist raised with a glove of Aura and collided with his smug face.

Hisoka stumbled back, likely more surprised than hurt by your sudden attack. He blinked in shock, touching his fingers to the red mark on his cheek. You felt his frightening flash of Aura, just for a second, but forced your rage to cover any fear.

Dropping his fingers, Hisoka’s eyes landed on your angry expression. You met his gaze as evenly as you could, hands balled into fists. The corners his lips quirked up, the sickening and oppressive feeling of his excitement flaring. Hisoka laughed, a low sound followed by a deep groan muffled by the palm he’d raised to cover his mouth.

You barely dared to breathe.

“ _Ah_ , when you look at me with those eyes… it’s like you’re  _begging_  for my love, to be filled to bursting… It’s sweet-” he made a breathless sound, eyes closed. 

You watched in muted fear you were no longer able to cover with rage. A tense moment passed, your heart beating loudly in your ears, and then he finally relaxed and looked at you, smiling. 

“But a misbehaving toy can’t go unpunished…”

Hisoka took a step towards you, making you flinch.

“What are you doing?” you asked, your heart still racing from his words.

“Your punishment. Hold still.”

You were confused and frightened for a second, understanding only hitting you once he had your arms fully bound. He’d used his Bungee Gum like this before, to leave you unable to move and at his mercy, so you knew struggling was pointless. It didn’t stop you, even though it strained your body to do so.

“Hisoka… wait, please I’m sorry! I just panicked, and I won’t…”  your pointless and panicked words trailed off. He didn’t really seem to care much, his smile remaining fixed as he easily attached strings of Aura until you were completely immobile.

When he was finished, your toes brushing the floor and eyes level with his, Hisoka’s smile grew. You glared.

“ _I’ll let you out when you’ve learned your lesson._ ”


	21. Hisoka Morow Prompt: I’m overreacting? Sweetheart, if anything I’m going easy on you.

“You’re overreacting!” you interrupted Hisoka in a voice approaching a shout, your tone colored by both fear and anger at his childish response. 

The words settled heavily in the limited confines of your tiny kitchen, a space that suddenly felt far too small. Especially when it was filled with the dead echo of your voice. Over and over again you heard yourself in the silence, regretting speaking out of anger with each repetition. 

And still, Hisoka said nothing.

You swallowed hard against a suddenly dry throat, blinking as the anger ebbed and allowed you more clarity to feel the situation. Hisoka leaning casually against your table, hands gripping the edge non-threateningly, should have set you at ease, but you knew better than to trust his relaxed stance. Not when his eyes were narrowed like that, unreadable to your own. Not when he was so quiet.

Every animal instinct in you urged you to put more distance between the two of you, the fine hairs on your neck standing on end and heart beating rapidly in the wake of your accusation. 

In the ever twisting roller coaster of your relationship, you’d been afraid of Hisoka before. Sometimes the fear was the allure, the attraction and thrill. Sometimes, though, it was nothing more than a reminder that such dark delights often had equally dark ends. In the flat yellow of his gaze, you saw that dark end.

Hisoka pushed off the table, standing to his full height. Then he took a step. The biggest mistake of the night, or at least your most damning one, was that you matched his with an involuntary frightened step back.

The small movement, your uncontrollable admission of defeat, made Hisoka pause, a smile playing across his lips. It was the predatory grin of assured victory over frightened prey. The expression made your stomach twist in a not so unfamiliar way, your wide eyes caught in the frightening spell of his own.

The change in the air was palpable, a slight shift that made you shutter. Danger of another flavor.

Hisoka took slow and measured steps towards you, but you matched each one with a backwards step of your own. 

It was just as instinctual as that first step, the urge of the hunted to evade the hunt no matter how futile. Fear, too, burned icy in your veins. But, as it so often happened around Hisoka, fear was bleeding excitement. Anticipation.

The true question, the one of whether or not you should stop him as any sane person would, still remained unanswered within your mind when you began speaking, voice distorted and breathy,

“Hisoka, I-”

There was no build up, just one smooth and fast action that you had no hopes of blocking or dodging. 

You felt the impact first, the crash of your body against the wall you’d backed yourself against. The world trembled alarmingly, flashing black before focusing.

And then you were choking.

Hisoka’s fist around your throat was hot. Bruising. Constricting. The rest of your body writhed below it in senseless panic, your feet kicking several feet above the ground, hands fighting to pry his fingers away from your windpipe.

Surprise was just as strong as fear and pain, a naive shock that he’d do something so brutal so suddenly. Thrill, too, in the form of an electric sort of  _zing_ running through your body at the genuine threat his hand around your neck symbolized.

All these things mixed together, a messy mixture of emotion being stifled as your mind’s clarity dulled and strained down into nothing more than the desire to struggle for life.

The whole time, your eyes remained locked with Hisoka’s, that bright gold the focus point in the center of the sense of reality you were quickly losing. 

“ _I’m ‘overreacting’_?” Hisoka repeated your regrettable words in a saccharine tone, “ _Sweetheart, if anything I’m going easy on you._ ”

His fingers tightened ever so slightly, pulling a choked moan from your protesting body. The sound turned Hisoka’s delighted grin into a full on expression of bliss, something that only barely registered as the loss of air quickly burned the edges of your vision to black.

Struggling was becoming harder and harder, a sort of horrified idea that he was actually going to kill you growing within your frantic thoughts.

But you wanted to live. You wanted to live -to breath- so badly, but the desire was voiced only in awful choking sounds. The noises of somebody dying. You wanted to live, but your body was falling slack.

“It’s splendid, mmm?” Hisoka cooed, his arousal clear even to your increasingly senseless and scared mind. “That look is so  _wonderful_.”

Fear was fleeting, nothingness quickly taking over your brain entirely. Yet, that praise still burned hot.

Then it was over. 

You felt detached, floating on nothingness. 

Then the world hit you.

Your eyes blinked open, rolling and confused as you gasped frantically for air, your body crying out silently in confused pain. As you finally found some focus, it was in the color gold. In the shape of a star and a teardrop.

The dizzying rush of stimuli tried to sort itself out in your mind, finally finding its footing enough to recognize that Hisoka was kissing you, his body pressed against yours without giving you any time to adjust to the sudden attack of sensory information. He had you pinned to the wall, supporting you completely so as to not leave you any space away from his assault of lust. 

Every haphazard breath you  _did_  manage filled you with a dizzying rush of pleasure, your oxygen-deprived body snapping back to attention with an overwhelming sensitivity made more disorienting by the very hot and intimately close body between your legs. 

Uncaring of your need to breath, Hisoka merely took advantage of the parting of your lips to draw you in to a deeper kiss, something bruising and aggressive. You weren’t sure if you were fighting him off or kissing him back, that specific clarity of control was still elusive.

Still, as things began to make more sense, a complete thought formed, freeing your mouth long enough to speak.

“I thought you were going to kill me,” you sounded breathless, although you managed to avoid a voice crack. Certainly not the firm accusation you’d hoped for.

Hisoka paused, pulling away to meet your eyes with smile. The expression was oddly innocent considering the indecency of the situation.

“Next time, I will.”


	22. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: He was in my way, so he had to leave. Unless you want to join him, behave.

It wasn’t a particularly chilly night, but that didn’t matter. You were ice cold, shivering even under the jacket you’d worn for this failed mission to see who your boyfriend truly was.

Not knowing had been better, it turned out.

You couldn’t stop staring at Chrollo, unable to understand the reality you’d been confronted by. Those cold gray eyes, somehow both harsh and empty, couldn’t be those of your beloved boyfriend. He felt like a stranger, a dangerous stranger shrouded in a black trench coat with his hair slicked back from his sharp features.

Chrollo had warned you before that you shouldn’t seek him out unless he came to you, that it wasn’t safe, but you’d never thought he would be the danger. 

The screams of the man he’d had Feitan drag away proved your naivety.

Would he be killed for pursuing Chrollo? Wasn’t that your crime, finding and pursuing him? The man you loved would never hurt you, but you weren’t sure that he was the one standing in front of you.

Fear and shock had you unsteady, not helped by the unmistakable sensation of concealed murderous intent rolling off of the other man with Chrollo, the daggers of his glare were almost physically painful.

A different set of eyes turned to you, as hard and gray as steel. Chrollo regarded you no differently than he had the man who’d begged for mercy. 

“I warned you to not seek me out unless I contacted you first. Did you use your ability to find me?” he asked, his voice just as unreadable as his eyes. He was referring to your Hatsu ability, a trick that let you to find things and people. 

Once, he’d ordered you to never use it on him. You wished you would have listened.

You had no choice but to nod, to admit that you’d disobeyed his trust for the sake of your curiosity. Did you imagine the way his features darkened? It was impossible to tell, the mask he wore was perfectly sealed.

“What’s going to happen with that guy?” you asked. A stupid question, even more stupid was the hope you spoke with. Hope that this might be a misunderstanding.

“ _He was in my way, so he had to leave. Unless you want to join him, behave._ ”


	23. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: If you stopped making so much noise, I might not have to be so rough.

You cursed at your dress and the stain you already knew was a lost cause. You weren’t even drunk and you were sloppy, ruining an otherwise fun night by spilling a drink on yourself. Chrollo didn’t often agree to go out, so when he did you tried to make the most of it. Or, in this case, end the night early by being an unforgivable klutz.

You sighed in defeat, smoothing out the stained skirt.

The door to the bathroom opened.

“Someone’s in…Oh,” you said, blinking in confusion at Chrollo’s sudden entrance into the ladies room. At least it wasn’t a stalled bathroom. “What are you doing?” 

He locked the door. Your heart gave an unhelpful thump at the sound.

“I finally realized what this is,” Chrollo told you, “It’s been bothering me for awhile.”

“What?” you asked, far too confused for an actual sentence. 

“Jealousy,” Chrollo began conversationally, taking a few steps until he was standing in front of you, your back to the sink. Trapping you. 

“It’s an irrational emotion. Seeing the way people so brazenly flirt with you shouldn’t upset me like this, but… It’s a natural instinct to feel possessive of something precious. To feel jealous.”

You gaped at him in shock. Chrollo feeling jealous? The concept seemed utterly laughable, if his eyes weren’t so deadly serious. 

“You’re jealous that people… flirt with me?” you belatedly asked, wondering if you should even point out the way women treated him. Chrollo didn’t bat an eye at your skeptical tone, continuing,

“Not to mention the way look they at you. Can’t you feel the eyes follow you as you dance? Is that why you behave so enticingly?”

“I don’t ‘entice’,” you denied with a frown, your heart racing in an almost distracting fashion at the way this was going. “You’re wrong.”

Chrollo lifted your chin with one hand, raising your face up until it was inches from his, your eyes meeting. He had such wide, lovely eyes. Always glassy, hiding his thoughts behind a barrier of gray. You anticipated a kiss, but he didn’t close the distance.

“Am I?” Chrollo pressed his leg between yours, his thigh rubbing against your core in a way that made your body tense up in surprise, a sharp gasp following the movement.

“You have to be quiet,” he warned you, an unfamiliar humor in his voice, in the expression he wore, “Your voice is for my ears only.”

Those possessive words made something in you burn, a feeling that was both tense and viscous. Destabilizing. With white knuckled fists, you gripped the edge of the sink you were pressed against, nodding. Excited nerves only added to the experience.

Chrollo’s hand, the one not holding your chin, found the bunched hem of your dress, slipping beneath it to trace his fingers across your bare thigh. When he leaned in, you closed your eyes, impatient to be kissed, but it was a feint. Instead, Chrollo tilted his head to press a kiss to your jaw.

“Your body,” he muttered, kissing in a line up to your ear, “Your mind,” his spare hand rose to tangle in your hair, “Everything. You’re mine, and mine only,” Chrollo’s voice was low, unquestioning. You could feel the rumble of it in his chest, his body curled over yours just as possessively as his words.

You were forced to bite your lip sharply to stifle a moan when his hand replaced his thigh against your core, his fingers far more effective in finding just the right place to stroke over the top of your underwear. The kisses were so sweet, contrasting with the words, with the way he was touching you. 

Something was different now from how he’d ever been, it was nearly overwhelming.

“Chrollo, please-”

He broke off your words abruptly by pulling with the hand in your hair, tilting your head and baring your neck. The pleasure of his skillful fingers over your clothed sex was almost enough to distract from the burn of your scalp and the chilling feeling of his breath brushing against your skin.

Almost. You were sure your lip was going to bleed with how hard you had to bite to keep yourself from making a sound.

“I warned you to be quiet,” Chrollo said into your ear in a low tone. You choked down a whimper. After a moment, he relaxed his fingers from your hair, his lips finding your skin and trailing down your neck.

So soft, so gentle- until his teeth sunk into your skin. The sound that you couldn’t contain was one of surprise.

Chrollo didn’t hesitate, pushing his fingers into your mouth while his worked at the place he’d bitten, sucking on the skin in a way you knew would leave a mark. You’d complain, but your mouth was otherwise preoccupied, and the stifled words only made him pinch your already sore bottom lip in a painful way between his thumb and forefinger. 

He’d told you to be quiet, but when his hand wandered underneath the band of your underwear, his mouth moving across your skin to add another mark, you couldn’t help but feel it was an impossible feat. Yet every sound, no matter how minor, only pushed Chrollo into being more rough.

There was no way you could manage to be silent when he pushed his fingers into you, continuing to work your clit with an expert’s skill, but the noises dulled by his fingers earned you nothing but more not-so-playful bites. The fingers both in your mouth and working to get you off were far from gentle. Punishing. Possessive.

Chrollo’s mouth left your skin, the air of his breath prickling against your freshly sore neck.

_“If you stopped making so much noise, I might not have to be so rough.”_

Those words, hearing his voice, pushed you over the edge, the tension in your belly snapping, the hot molten feeling rushing through your body and sweetening every feeling, every sensation.

Chrollo finally freed your mouth to kiss your sore lips, working you through your orgasm and swallowing any sounds you made, holding you from tipping back away from him with a hand still slick with your saliva.

When it was over, the perfect high fading and reality bringing you to a point of realizing your neck was covered in marks, your lips hurt and tasted of blood, and you were going to have to walk out of the bar looking like that, you opened your eyes. 

Chrollo’s were only inches away, the same steady gray you were used to. He looked pleased with himself. Your eyes narrowed.

“I’m going to have to wear turtlenecks for weeks,” you told him accusingly. He smiled.

“I know.”


	24. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: Don’t cover my bite marks. If you do, I might have to add something more obvious.

 

“Are you almost ready to go?” Chrollo called from the other room, pulling you from contemplating your reflection.

You checked the bedside clock behind you, almost surprised to see how much time had passed while you were getting ready.

“Yeah, just about,” you called back.

But turning around to face the mirror made you reconsider your words. The issue tonight wasn’t your poor time management skills, as was usually the case, but the assortment of fresh bite marks he’d left along your neck and collar bones. There was no way anybody could mistake what they were, especially with how dark the bruising was.

None of your shirts or sweaters had a neck high enough to cover them all. It was as if he’d deliberately tried to make it impossible to hide. If you went out like this, what would people think?

No. You knew what they’d think. You sighed anxiously, rolling back and forth on your feet as you considered what to do.

Then it hit you. Scarves.

An urgent energy in your step, you went to your closet, digging into the back where you knew you had one or two scarves that you never wore. It was better to be slightly unfashionable than for people to see the unfortunate evidence of your sex life, right? You found them with a rush of relief, pulling out the one that was the closest to matching your outfit.

All in all, the scarf didn’t look too terrible. You adjusted it in the mirror, glad to see that the fabric covered all of the marks.

“We’re going to miss the credits,” Chrollo said, finally having gotten impatient enough to enter your room. You turned to him, prepared to tell him that it was actually his fault this time, but before you could he spoke.

“What are you wearing?” he asked, leaving the doorway to approach you with a disapproving look on his face. You rolled your eyes.

“I had to do something to cover all of the marks you left. I looked like I’d gotten into a fight with a wild animal,” you told him. Chrollo didn’t respond to the poor joke, coming behind you so he could consider your reflection as well. His weird mood made you frown. “It’s not that bad,” you said self consciously, adjusting the material with a frown.

He raised a skeptical eyebrow, gray eyes raising to meet yours in the mirror.

“The colors don’t even match,” Chrollo pointed out.

“Then I’ll change,” you responded with an annoyed sigh.

“We’re already late,” he said, “There’s no need to change, this is the only issue.”

Chrollo unwound the scarf from your neck to let it flutter to the floor, revealing all of the marks he’d left on your skin. They looked even worse with his pale hands lingering around them, the white a stark contrast to the dark reds and purples. He eyed them impassively, leaving you unable to understand exactly what he was thinking.

“Chrollo,” you protested, eyebrows furrowing, “C’mon, I don’t want people to get the wrong idea.”

He looked up from admiring your neck, eyes locking with yours again and his hands loosely encircling your neck. It hurt slightly when he began to press his fingers against the bruises, considering how sensitive they still were. Not that it was entirely unpleasant. With Chrollo standing so close behind, his eyes on yours and hands around your neck, you felt more than just the pain.

Still, you couldn’t let go of your frustration.

“It looks bad if people see me like this,” you told him as firmly as you could. Chrollo’s expression remained stoic.

 _“Don’t cover my bite marks,”_  he told you, eyes burning yours and voice low,  _“If you do, I might have to add something more obvious.”_


	25. Possessive Chrollo + Breakup

“I suppose it was only a matter of time before you found out the truth,” Chrollo said, his tone far more casual than you’d expect for the situation. In fact, he didn’t sound concerned at all.

That semi smile he wore as looked through your carefully compiled evidence was another blow to your already bullet-ridden heart. How could he smile after being caught in his lies? How could he react to your devastation at his betrayal so flippantly?

“I’m impressed, this information must have been very hard to come by,” Chrollo said, setting down the file holding proof of his deceit. It was full of facts you’d painstakingly gathered as you fell down the painful rabbit hole of realizing your boyfriend was an international criminal, drawing connections between everything you knew about the man you loved and the feared Phantom Troupe’s shadowy leader.

“I had to know,” you said quietly, choked up with the embarrassing urge to cry as you met his wide gray eyes from across the living room.

While Chrollo sat on the couch, you’d curled into a chair to keep a solid distance between the two of you. Usually, you’d be holding onto him from the second he showed up until he had to leave again, but now the idea of his hands on you made you feel ill.

“You could have asked,” Chrollo said reasonably, leaning back to get more comfortable. If misery weren’t clouding your head, you’d have laughed at that statement.

“And what, take your word for it?” you asked, the bitter bite of sarcasm hiding the raw emotion in your voice.

“I never lied to you.”

“A lie of omission is still a lie!” you exclaimed, voice rising in frustration at how indifferent he seemed towards your pain. “How can I ever trust you? You’re a… a…”

“Criminal?” Chrollo offered.

“Killer,” you finished, looking him in the eye when you spoke. The only reaction was for his expression to harden, eyes turning to slate.

“So that’s why,” he mused, as if something had connected in his mind. He was still so casual, even comfortable, after being called a killer. You’d had enough.

Drawing in a deep breath, you stood up. Now, looking down at him, you felt stronger. Or at least more in control. All of your anger and despair at the situation was boiling over, the words forming before you’d even given them proper thought.

“You know what they call what you did?” you asked, a nearly hysteric question, “A genocide! I’ve always sort of known deep down that you were involved in something shady, but I never could have imagined that it was as bad as this. The massacre of an entire people, it’s..” You cut yourself off, feeling sick and close to tears.

Time drug on for an extended period of time after your rant, allowing you to compose yourself with your face turned away from the uncomfortable spotlight of his gaze. Allowing you a moment before he spoke.

“Do you think they were innocent?” Chrollo asked, a chilling calm in his voice.

When you dared to turn back to him, you were frozen by his unreadable expression and a piercing stare. He meant his question. He wanted an answer.  

“Innocent?” you asked, somewhat stunned.

“The Kurta Clan,” Chrollo said, his eyes unchanging.

You swallowed hard, working to not be intimidated by his enigmatic stoicism.

“What does it matter if they weren’t?” Your question was uncertain, confused. The change in tension was jarring.

Chrollo stood smoothly, taking away your height advantage. You fought the urge to take a step away, holding your ground with dwindling confidence.

“It’s the nature of man to seek revenge against those who have wronged them, certainly you’re not naive to that,” Chrollo told you, taking a step.

“No,” you replied, “But if it was revenge, why did you take their eyes?”

Chrollo was unphased by your question, taking another step. He was getting too close, every breath you took filling with his scent. Sandalwood and rose, with something even warmer underneath. Safe. He smelled like safety.

“They were already dead,” Chrollo told you lowly, gray eyes unwavering, “The Spider steals things of value, and we had no obligation to respect their dead.”

You didn’t know what to say, unable to think of any further arguments. Chrollo took advantage of your speechlessness, his face softening as took a final step towards you, close enough to feel his warmth.

“I’m sorry I lied to you,” he said, his voice taking on a more gentle cadence, “Please forgive me, allow me a chance to make it up to you.”

For a second too long, you were convinced. But then reason kicked in.

“N-no,” you said, finally taking a step back, shaking your head to break the spell. “You can’t just fix something like this-”

“Why not?” Chrollo asked simply, curiously. He had to be joking.

“Why not?” you repeated incredulously, “How about because I don’t think I can ever trust you again, huh? Or that I don’t want to date somebody with a class-A bounty on their heads? I gave you my heart, and I never once lied to you!”

Tears were in your eyes, now, breath hitching as you continued to rant, voice rising to a shrill shout.

“There’s no way to fix this! No way you can just say a few nice things and smooth it over and make me forget about the blood on your hands, Chrollo. You killed people and stole things and, what, came back to me when there was no treasure to steal? Why? Why did you make me love you?

“I don’t understand why you’ve done any of this, and I don’t need you to keep lying and making even a bigger fool out of me. I don’t-” sobbing in full, your words were past coherent, “I don’t understand, I just don’t understand why you’d do this to me, we can’t be together anymore, I can’t-”

Warm arms wrapped around you, pulling you into a familiar and comfortable embrace as you cried. The struggle you put up was pitiful at best, but the truth was that the stability Chrollo offered was the only thing that kept you from falling apart completely.

“Before I met you, I didn’t understand the concept of sentimental value. Why people cared so much about the things I stole from them. I thought I would learn that secret by stealing, but it remained a mystery to me. Until you,” Chrollo explained in a tender voice that resonated against your ear, one hand petting your hair soothingly. “I didn’t believe that I could love like this, but you proved me wrong. You’re meant to be mine. You can’t leave me.”

Chrollo released you, holding you at arms length to meet your teary and cautious eyes, but not allowing escape.

“I love you,” Chrollo said, eyes wide and honest. That expression shifted a second later, sharpening. “And if you mention leaving me again, I’ll be more than happy to prove that to you.” 


	26. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: You’re calling that jealousy? Believe me, if you can still use your legs, I’m not being jealous.

Chrollo was going too hard, his rough pace feeling twice as harsh when you were still coming down from an orgasm, over-sensitive and reeling from the excess of stimulation.

“Too.. too much,” you gasped out, unable to get distance from the hard drive of his hips between your thighs, his body keeping you pinned to the wall. Too much, and yet you could already feel your body pushing you to come again, reaching for more despite the conflicting signals of near-pain.

“Chrollo please-” now your voice was a pleading whine, because it felt so good it hurt and you weren’t sure if you were begging for him to help you get off or to slow down, driven to incoherency by the agony of pleasure.

“Say that again,” Chrollo demanded, his low voice breathtakingly erotic to your lust drunk brain.

You made a helpless noise at the order, a sound that quickly became a high pitched moan when his hand fell between your legs, seeking your clit. Chrollo responded with a drawn out groan of his own, his breath coming in sharp gasps against your neck.

“Chrollo please I- I need-” your voice cut off with a cry when he used his off hand to pull your leg up, changing the angle so each thrust hit a place within you that made you see stars.

“I know what you need,” he said into your ear, sounding far too composed considering the situation, “So ask me.”

You were so close, right at the edge, you just needed a little more and-

“Please make me come, Chrollo, plea-”

You didn’t even finish the desperate plea before fingers began to rub your clit with focus, his pace somehow picking up even further as he got closer to his own end. You heard yourself crying his name, gasping and moaning as your mind became a dazed mess of pleasure and pain, fingernails scratching at his back, your hands gripping his shoulders like a safety line.

When you came, it hit in a rush of pleasure, filling you completely and leaving you dead to anything approaching coherency. Chrollo followed you soon after, making a sound almost like a growl before it open up into a softer moan. The pace slowed, his hips driving deep with an uneven tempo as he rode out the entire thing inside you. 

Every movement of his made you twitch and shutter, mind glazed and body trembling with aftershocks.

You winced when he pulled out and helped you back to the ground, a reminder at how rough he’d been. Not that you necessarily minded, but you couldn’t help but frown up at his self-satisfied expression.

“I understand jealousy, but I think it’s a bit unfair to try and break me over it,” you tried to joke, the humor marred by your breathlessly husky tone. Chrollo smiled down at you, no trace of remorse in his expression when he responded,

_“You’re calling that jealousy? Believe me, if you can still use your legs, I’m not being jealous.”_


	27. Yandere Hisoka Morow Prompt: Maybe if I branded you, other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.

You didn’t care that you couldn’t remember his name, or that he was apart of the mob that owned this club. You didn’t care that this was a really terrible idea. You didn’t care about anything at all.

You just needed to forget. Lose yourself in the messy and rough treatment of a some stranger man. Let him pin you to the wall of the empty and dark office, the bass of the faraway music pounding against your back, so you could pretend that you had even the slightest bit of autonomy.

He tasted like whiskey and regret, but at least it was something to drive that cloying amber scent from your mind. The one that filled your nose the first time you’d fought him, and the one that lingered whenever he broke into the places you were staying and showed up without warning. 

Since the day you’d first caught the attention of the demon called Hisoka Morow, your life had stopped being your own. 

Hisoka Morow, who said it was love as he slaughtered everyone you cared about, everyone you interacted with.

Hisoka Morow, who called you special. Who called you his toy, his very own precious plaything.

Hisoka Morow, who was slowly but surely was pushing you to the edge. 

Hisoka Morow, who was bleeding you of all sanity or control.

And this? Was this control? Making out with a stranger in the semi-dark of the club’s office in the hopes you could close your eyes tonight and not envision a painted face and bright yellow eyes was hardly empowering.

Returning his messy and drunken kiss with all the misplaced passion a dozen card houses and frighteningly flirtatious and possessive comments had encouraged was really only acknowledging the effect Hisoka had on you.

And, to top it all, trying to bury your fear and helplessness in some stranger’s arms was, putting it simply, pointless. The more and more you got into it, the more you realized that you were no longer focusing on the man’s whiskey flavored lips or stocky build, but closing your eyes to imagine something else. Someone else.

Here, in the dark, your mind presented Hisoka to you as an incubus, a creature oozing a maniacal lust for both blood and flesh.  

“Did you just,” the mobster pulled away, his wet mouth shining in the dim red of the emergency light that was the sole illumination of this room, “Did you just call me Hisoka? That your ex?” he asked with a sleazy smile.

“Something like that,” you responded, a sick feeling hitting you when you realized you’d said his name. You’d been naive to think that this stranger could fix what had been broken by much more adept hands. Denying the ugly truth.

“Actually, I… I should go,” you said, pushing him away from you as you pushed down the disgust you felt.

“Nah, c’mon baby. I’ll help you forget all about him,” he responded with a smile, only pushing himself more firmly against you. His body was hot, smelling of sweat and too much cologne. A clumsy and slightly drunk man who was about as try-hard masculine as you could get.

On some primal level, he was utterly repugnant to you. But, his lack of resemblance was why you’d picked him in the first place. 

You opened your mouth, unknowing if you were going to agree or disagree, but someone else interrupted you. The voice was unmistakable, both in cadence and inflection. He was, after all, the host of your sickening nightmare.

“It’s bad manners to take what doesn’t belong to you,” Hisoka said in a honeyed tone, appearing like the demon you couldn’t help but see him as in front of the red emergency light.  

“Eh? And who do you think you are?” the mobster asked with a quickfire temper, his accent intensifying as he pulled away to leave your stock-still body pressed flat to the wall in dread.

“A magician who doesn’t like to share,” Hisoka replied with a grand gesture, taking slow steps closer. 

Outlined in that rosy hue, you could see that even the way he walked was intimidating. Predatory, yet his hips swayed so enticingly even the most skill of temptresses would likely be jealous. 

Evil was, above all else, a horribly seductive creature.

“Is this a joke? Get the fuck outta here, buddy,” the mobster demanded. Even with his pathetically dull senses, the animistic side of his humanity recognized that something was terribly, terribly wrong with Hisoka. 

But, as with most fools, his fear so easily became anger, and then he drew his gun. The metal gleamed red as he aimed at the still approaching Hisoka.

You should have told him to stop, but your selfish survival instinct told you that he was already dead. That your only chance of escaping now was to wait until Hisoka became distracted by killing him. So you stayed tense, preparing yourself to dash and get out of here the moment the magician made his move.

“Last warning, pal,” the mobster said, the gun clicking when he pulled the hammer.

Hisoka was close enough for you to see his smile, his yellow eyes fixed upon the man in front of you. The card that appeared between his fingers had a shiny seal, the queen of hearts glowing red. 

It happened so quickly that unless you were straining yourself to see, you’d have missed it.

That hundredth of a second was the moment you moved, running to the exit as Hisoka was otherwise preoccupied. Or, you would have. But you tripped, splaying onto the floor with the force of all your built up momentum. It hurt, your knees and elbows taking the harsh impact. 

Only a second after, the mobster’s corpse hit the floor beside you with a thud, splattering you with blood.

Looking down with Gyo-sharpened vision, you saw what had made you trip. Bungee Gum. The sticky pink Aura gripped your bare ankle like a shackle. With all Hisoka’s gesturing and posturing, you should have been looking for this. 

You were an idiot.

“Oh dear, did his bad manners rub off on you?” Hisoka asked, flicking the excess blood off his playing card before it disappeared. “You should at least thank me before running off,” he told you indulgently.

“Why are you here?” you asked bluntly, keeping your voice monotone to avoid any emotion coloring it as you got to your feet.

Hisoka shrugged casually, moving with slow steps over the body. Closing the distance. He was too close. But to show fear was to admit weakness, so you lifted your chin defiantly.

“When I saw you going out dressed in such an… appetizing way,” Hisoka said, eyes sliding down your body slowly, smirking, “I got curious. A pity you chose to waste your time with him.”

So he’d been watching from the time you’d left your place, and waited this long to interrupt. That was even more disturbing to you than the murder, somehow.

“Leave me alone,” you demanded, pulling on the hot thread of anger in your heart to lend you strength. Your heart was thudding strangely, a dozen mixed signals firing off in your head. 

Hisoka took a final step to you, pausing and sniffing delicately. You were sure you smelled like all sorts of cologne mixed with cheap perfume, the intermingling sweat between you and the dead stranger whose name you would never know. 

He frowned.

“I told you before that I won’t share. You’re  _mine_ ,” Hisoka said in a low and threatening way, eyes narrowed as he looked down at you. 

Although he still spoke with a certain lilt, there was no question in your mind that his tone meant danger. It meant he was serious. 

But so were you, right then. Serious and scared.

“I’m not  _yours_ ,” you told him with frightened conviction, “I can do whatever I want with other people. I don’t belong to you!”

The glare you managed to give him was one of pain and fear rather than pure anger, but it was steady all the same. You could almost even believe in your words, believe that you could remain strong against this demon.

Until Hisoka’s severe expression melted at your words and glare, the expression slowly becoming a smile, then a laugh that he stifled with one pale hand. The sound invited a different type of tension to the dark and blood scented room, one that was almost more unsettling.

“I adore that look in your eyes,” he cooed as his hand dropped, “Your eyes make it hard to be patient, but I’d hate to break you before we’re done playing… Until then, I should find a way to make sure you don’t spoil my prize…” 

He paused, thinking. You had nothing to say, could barely accept those words and the heavily affected voice that spoke them. Golden eyes slid from you to the corpse on the floor, then back to you with a new sort of light. Hisoka smiled.

“I’ve heard the members of the mob use a particular method to show loyalty to their leader,” Hisoka told you,  _“Maybe if I branded you, other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hisoka is the only guy I'd thank for thinking of me as a prize


	28. Main Four + Eating Out their S/O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: Gon and Killua are aged up in this. That means 18+. Just to clarify.

**Gon’s Enthusiasm is Infectious**

 

“You’re really wet,” Gon told you from between your thighs with something like excited surprise, illustrating his point by sliding two calloused fingers through your slick folds. Whatever response you might have had to his words was lost in a whiny sort of moan, your legs opening further in invitation, begging him silently.

 

Gon chuckled at that, which you might have been more upset about if it wasn’t the thing to happen right before he went down on you. The first touch of his tongue to your swollen clit made your breath catch, your body tensing in anticipation. Then, after a slight pause, perhaps to give you time to object, Gon began in earnest. 

 

There was no easing into it, or any attempt at teasing you. Right from the start, Gon was fervent in his dedication to getting you off, finding all of the spots that made you react the loudest and focusing on them relentlessly. Even in sex -no, especially in sex- he was earnest and straightforward. Energetic in a way that often left you dizzy and breathless.

 

An enhancer through and through. 

 

Every stroke of Gon’s hot tongue against your sensitive flesh had your body jerking and back arching. His zeal left you unable to do anything but hold on, to the sheets, to his hair, to the soft skin of your own thighs to keep yourself from suffocating him.

 

It hurt a bit when Gon started outright with two fingers, finger fucking you with the same excited pace of his tongue, but that slight pain, that roughness, only wound you tighter. You were going to come quickly, already you could feel the build of it within your core, a hot feeling beneath the even hotter sensation of his mouth.

 

“Mm, G-Gon, right there… Right there,  _ please _ !” you begged. So close to the edge, all you could focus on was the feeling of his tongue, of his fingers, of the pleasure he was giving you. 

 

Gon did as you asked with a hum of assent, focusing his calloused fingers on your g-spot without restraint. 

 

And that was it, that feeling threw you over the edge as you came undone. Gon’s name became a chant among the dozens of other lewd noises he was drawing up from your lips, your body tensing and pushing against him to chase the unbearably blissfully hot feeling of release, your fingers seeking purchase in his thick hair. 

 

Gon worked you through it, his mouth and fingers moving tirelessly until you were down from that high, twitching and breathing heavily. He pulled away, looking up at you with wide eyes.

 

“Eh... Are you okay?” he asked with a strange sort of guilelessness that was strange considering his position. You couldn’t help but giggle, buzzing in the wake of your orgasm. 

 

“That was… amazing,” you replied breathlessly. Gon smiled wide at the praise.

 

“I have something you’ll like even more.”

 

**Kurapika Can’t Take a Joke**

 

Moving without any sort of rush or urgency, Kurapika swirled his tongue around your clit, carefully avoiding the spot you wanted him most. Torturing you, as he had been for what felt like hours. Almost instinctively, your hips pushed upwards, seeking stimulation where you really needed it, but Kurapika’s arm was keeping you down. 

 

The feeling of being at his mercy brought a needy whine from your throat, which became a choked gasp when he slowly worked a finger into you. A second one joined soon after, curling to seek out your g-spot as they set a torturously slow pace. And still, his tongue wasn’t quite where you wanted, where you needed. 

 

Having him take the lead like this was fairly uncommon, but you couldn’t say you were especially pleased that he was using it to punish you like this. And all because you’d made a few too many jokes at his expense in jest. It was unfair.

 

Your hand lowered, wanting some form of control over this torture, but before it could get that far he’d grabbed your wrist in his off hand. Kurapika’s grip was nearly painful, but you forgot about that feeling when his mouth finally moved to where you wanted, his lips securing around your clit and sucking on that sensitive bundle of nerves. 

 

It felt so good it hurt, making your entire body tense and writhe beneath him, a mass of stars exploding behind your eyelids as you cried out. Taking advantage of your pleasure, he added a third finger, continuing to move with a practiced leisure. 

 

When Kurapika’s tongue went back to teasing, to slowly tracing your heated flesh without any concern, you could have cried. 

 

“Kurapika, please,” you plead, “I need more, please.”

 

“Are you sorry?” he asked calmly, the air of his words brushing your skin tauntingly. You clenched your teeth, a breath hissing out in frustration at the reminder of why he was doing this at all.

 

“It was just a joke,” you complained hoarsely, your argument made weak by the fact that his fingers hadn’t stopped inside you, proving to be an agonizing distraction.

 

“Are you sorry?” Kurapika asked again, his thumb finding your clit to further the over-stimulating torment. You groaned, unable to deny yourself any longer, even if you were definitely in the right. 

 

“I’m am! I am sorry I was mean,” you said, unable to hold out any longer, “I’ll never, ever do it again just please-” 

 

Kurapika cut you off by finally giving you what you wanted, feeding the flames he’d been so cruelly stoking. His dexterous fingers picked up pace inside you, his tongue focusing on where you wanted so badly, tracing clever little patterns that had you crying out his name like a prayer. 

 

After he’d been withholding pleasure for so long, this rapid rush of stimulation was overwhelming. Your mind felt like it was bursting , your thoughts becoming completely corrupted by the animalistic chase of lust.

 

“So good… You’re so good,” you told Kurapika in a voice weighted by desire. Otherwise occupied, Kurapika finally allowed to run your fingers through his soft hair. “I really am sorry, really-” your breath caught in a gasp when he did something different with his tongue, making your hips buck up uncontrollably. 

 

Your words were descending into incoherence, revolving simply around his name and various praise as Kurapika worked you up to release, building upon that heat with every stroke of his tongue and rough trust of his fingers.

 

Orgasm hit you with a discernible snap, the wound up knot releasing to fill you with waves of pleasure that began at the point of Kurapika’s touch and ended in a lazy fizzle at your fingers and toes. It left you blinded, breathless, and fuzzily thinking that maybe teasing Kurapika into cruel retaliation wasn’t so bad.

 

He let up when your moans became more pained, oversensitivity overcoming the places he’d been so tentatively focused on. You relaxed when Kurapika pulled away, body covered in a sheen of sweat and still trembling. Still, you couldn’t help but shoot a worn out and playful smile his way.

 

“What if I told you I’m not actually sorry anymore?” you asked him. Kurapika’s eyes, scarlet with lust, narrowed in  frustration as he began to climb up to you.

 

“If you wanted to be punished, you could have just asked.”

 

**Killua’s Electric Love**

 

Killua spent a total of fifteen impatient minutes complaining about the opening band at a concert you’d dragged him to until he found a way to entertain himself. 

 

The fact that you were his entertainment was, as Killua told you while pulling you to a relatively private spot in the dark behind one of the empty festival sets, your own fault for making him come with you.

 

Not like you really minded. Strangely, the risk only made the excitement that much stronger. Perhaps it was because your mind and anxieties were soothed a bit with alcohol, not enough to get drunk, but undeniably tipsy.

 

Or at least tipsy enough that every touch of Killua’s hands to your skin sent an erotic thrill through your body, your lack of inhibitions making you unable to stifle the moans as he pushed you against the solid wall and flipped up your skirt, pushing your legs apart so he could kneel between them. 

 

“Are you really okay with me doing this?” Killua asked you teasingly, a cocky grin on his face as he paused before actually touching your aching sex, “If we get caught, we might get kicked out before your band plays.”

 

Some part of your mind registered that that might have been what he was aiming for with this stunt. It didn’t matter, though. You both knew your self control when it came to sex was, at best, lackluster. The sight of him kneeling between your legs was honestly too much for you to give any more thought to the consequences, surrendering to base desire without too much struggle.

 

“Yes, yes, please, Killua, I don’t care,” you replied, uncaring of the desperation of your voice.

 

“Okay,” he responded sweetly with smile that quickly disappeared beneath your skirt. 

 

Killua pulled down your underwear, separated your outer lips with a practiced confidence, and licked a wide stripe over that sensitive skin. You gasped loudly, head falling back against the wall behind you and legs trembling unsteadily.

 

He repeated the motion, moving at excruciatingly slow pace, his fingers making no move towards your wet entrance as they kept you exposed to him. 

 

You could have sworn you became fevered right then, the night air suddenly feeling especially chilling to your flushed skin. 

 

Even then, Killua didn’t move any faster, running taunting circles around your clit. Why was it that the slow motions always felt the dirtiest? It drove you wild, aching for more with an unusually strong urgency. 

 

“Killua…” you breathed out, the need in your voice clear. 

 

As if that had been what he was waiting for, Killua suddenly shifted, nearly destabilizing you when he threw your leg over his shoulder. That position made sure he didn’t have to use his hands to keep your clit exposed, one hand gripping your thigh and the other teasing your entrance. It left you without any room to move, or any control over his actions, but you didn’t care. 

 

You understood that you were being a too loud, the lewd sounds you couldn’t fight setting an odd melody to the far away music. But understanding was fleeting in the wake of the nearly delirious pleasure Killua was bringing you with the movements of his tongue, with the way he seemed to know exactly how to find the right spot inside of you with his fingers.

 

Release built up quickly inside of you, your lust and alcohol tipsy mind offering no resistance to accepting and giving into the pleasurable sensations. 

 

On the brink of coming, you begged with reckless abandon, your entire world focusing on your body’s demand for release. Your stabilizing leg trembled, more of your weight resting on Killua’s supporting shoulder, your hands seeking to tangle in his soft and eternally messy hair.

 

But it wasn’t enough, not quite. Not until you felt the light shock, the tense jolt of electricity against the thigh he was gripping. It was minor, only a little painful, but the electrifying tension was the thing to push you over the edge, making you tighten hard around his fingers, a cry that verged on a scream filling the dark as you came. 

 

It left your entire body shaking, that electric feeling becoming the course of pleasure as it pulsed through your body, the only thing you could focus on being the stimulation of Killua’s tongue, his fingers. 

 

The residual tremor still affected you when it was over, when Killua pulled away. Even the light brush of him pulling your underwear back up felt too stimulating.

 

Gentle, now, he set your leg back on the ground, letting your skirt fall and body wilt against the wall behind you. 

 

“I think your band’s about to go on,” he told you conversationally with a cheeky smirk, standing. You blinked at him, breathing still uneven and cheeks flushed. Band? Your mind scrambled to remember, but the burn of lust within you won out. 

 

“I think I’d rather go home.”

 

**Doctor Leorio’s Miracle Cure**

 

You got migraines sometimes. Not too often, but when they hit, they hit hard, leaving you laying in bed the whole day as you fought the pain with ice packs and a variety of pills. When you woke up with one, Leorio’s worry was incredibly obvious, as well as his reluctance to simply feed you medicine that didn’t even always work.

 

So, he offered you a different pain killer.

 

“A natural medicine that releases a combination of dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin into your brain might be just the thing to relieve your pain,” he had told you with that silly self important ‘doctor’ attitude you found so charming.

 

Your response had been, of course, a resounding,

 

“What?”

 

With a bit less confidence and pinkened cheeks, Leorio clarified that what he was offering was to eat you out to completion with the idea that an orgasm would be a good natural alternative to your usual cocktail of pills. As a medical professional, of course. 

 

Even with pain making you feel at least fifty percent more cranky than usual, that was an offer you couldn’t turn down. 

 

“Tell me if it hurts or I’m being too rough,” he told you seriously from between your legs.

 

He truly was like a doctor dedicated to his patient. That wasn’t too bad of a fantasy, maybe something worth exploring when there wasn’t a piercing pain behind your eye.

 

“Of course, Doctor Leorio,” you replied with a weak smile, both pain and a lustful excitement at what was about to happen making your voice breathless. You didn’t miss the way his eyes lit up, the grin he wore has he pushed your thighs further apart and eagerly went down on you.

 

Painfully slow, wet, and dirty, Leorio ran his tongue over your clit. It made you shiver, the feeling surprisingly pleasurable despite the pain you felt behind your eye. Normally, he ate you out with a vigor you’d expect of a fiery man like him, impatient and excited to get you off with his tongue. Now, it was as if he was teasing with how slow he was going. 

 

Not that it wasn’t effective. 

 

Soon, you were moaning and writhing beneath his slow and careful ministrations. Your pain was slowly fading from your mind, replaced by the intensifying pleasure spreading moltenly through your lower half. 

 

“Leorio…” you breathed softly, “You can… you can go faster,” you told him in a tone that sounded like a plea. 

 

With only a little hesitation, Leorio did just that, finally testing your wetness with one finger while his tongue became more enthusiastic, the patterns he licked over your clit becoming more erratic and messily passionate. 

 

Even with the more zealous way he was pleasuring you with his tongue, Leorio’s skilled fingers were careful not to jostle your body too much as they slid in and out. Considerate and kind, you felt a rush of love and affection for him, joining in with the pleasure in an intoxicating way.

 

Your moans were getting louder, gasps and other lewd sounds growing in volume as your migraine became, both figuratively and literally, the last thing on your mind. You reached down, guiding his hand to move faster inside of you, your body coiled and tense as the deliciously sweet euphoric feeling grew.

 

Release didn’t come in one grand wave, hard and heavy. Under Leorio’s touch, it was a gradual swell, hitting as if in slow motion as your hips rolled with a drawn out leisure against him. Each wave filled you with warmth and joy, with a swollen feeling of adoration and devotion.

 

“I love you, I love you, I-” your breathlessness degraded the words into an uneven worship, an incoherent manta. Leorio didn’t stop until the slow descent ended, reality pulling you down from that high, but leaving you warm and satisfied.

 

A second passed as you just breathed, Leorio sitting up.

 

“How do you feel?” he asked. 

 

“You’re a really good doctor.”  


	29. Hisoka x Illumi x Reader + Polyship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon asked: "Uhm hi! Would you mind writing more about the hisoillu polyship? I’ve kinda hc that it started off from the scenario u wrote where hiso approached illumis s/o lol and since then they can’t get rid of the damn clown, i have no special scenario in mind indulge as you please, if u want to"
> 
> The post they're referring to is this:
> 
> http://agent-cupcake.tumblr.com/post/179782670240/illumi-will-forbid-their-meeting-i-mean-his-so

Threatening someone with death once was, maybe, reasonable.

 

Twice? A bit less severe, but most could wait until the third strike to kill.

 

But by the third time, the unenforced threat had you questioning if there might have been something more going on.

 

Illumi didn’t even get all that worked up when Hisoka showed up anymore, for the most part he just ignored, even tolerated, the man. In a way, it almost reminded you of how your own relationship with Illumi had evolved. 

 

Only, you’d at least waited until Illumi actually enjoyed your company before kissing him. Hisoka skipped that step, and the ones after, jumping right to the bold proposal of -in his own flowery words- a ménage à trois. 

 

That was the reason for Illumi’s third unfulfilled death threat, and the longest Hisoka had gone before showing back up again.

 

A prolonged absence like that showed an obvious deviation from Hisoka’s original goal, for better or for worse. Before, his end game had clearly been to find a way to use you to pick a fight with Illumi. After he came back from that especially lengthy hiatus, however, the objective had switched. 

 

Hisoka wanted to use you to get Illumi to agree with a threesome. 

 

The not so subtle shift to his new objective included a sharp increase in flirtatious and scandalous behavior. More convincingly were the moments where he acted like a real person and not some caricature of a creepy clown criminal. Moments where you couldn’t help but laugh at the inane things he said, where you let your guard down a little.

 

And what’s more? It worked. 

 

Months and months of Hisoka’s pestering and annoying you and Illumi, wearing down your will to resist with each unannounced visit, culminated in a single conversation you had with Illumi. You both agreed that, in the end, it was better to satiate Hisoka in this way rather than have him go back to prioritizing the thrill of a fight against the two of you.

 

It was dangerous, probably stupid, and had the chance to end in mass chaos and death. 

 

Still, you couldn’t deny that just the thought of it was unspeakably sexy.

 

Butterflies in your stomach, you unlocked and entered the hotel room Illumi had specified, letting the door shut with a click behind you. 

 

The room was dark, lit mainly by the bluish light from the city far below the uncovered windows. The interior lights seemed more apart of the decor than actually helpful, although it did lend an eerily dreamy romanticism to the room.

 

Most noticeable was the monstrous bed, hinting to the actual purpose of this room.

 

Illumi stood on the balcony to your left, the doors open and allowing the cool night air and far away city noise to pierce the quiet. His black hair danced in the breeze, almost as if it had a mind of its own. He was striking. Beautiful.

 

You bit your lip, excitement pushing through the nerves at seeing him. 

 

“Illumi?” you asked, taking off your shoes to leave beside his. He turned, brushing his long dark hair away from his face absentmindedly. 

 

“You’re early,” he said, leaving the balcony to meet you. You frowned. That wasn’t true, you were exactly on time. 

 

An objection to his false accusation died on your tongue when Illumi caught you in an embrace, his shadowed dark eyes on yours as he pulled you up for a kiss. Surrendering to him was second nature to you, allowing him to take control as instinctive as breathing. 

 

Illumi kissed you without the passion of romance, but with something far more intoxicating, the intent to possess. Never messy, never losing too much control. His cold hands held your head at the angle he wanted, keeping you in place. Even when he bit your lip, it was a precise action, eliciting a sound of surprised delight that was muffled by his mouth on yours.

 

That sound triggered it - a flare of an easily recognizable Aura. When you tensed up, Illumi released you, allowing your head to whip to the side. Hisoka lounged casually on the black sofa, his pale arms spread out on the back of it and smiling golden eyes shining in the dim light. 

 

Surprisingly, you noticed that his face was free of makeup, no star nor teardrop on his cheeks. In fact, aside from his odd clothes, he looked almost normal. Certain more normal than Illumi. That was an unsettling thought.

 

How long had he been there?

 

“You’re early,” Illumi repeated, minor displeasure clear in his voice. 

 

So he’d been there the whole time, then. 

 

“I didn’t want to miss any of the fun,” Hisoka said, grinning up at the two of you, “Feel free to continue. I don’t mind...  _ watching _ .”

 

Illumi continued to look down at Hisoka, as if thinking.

 

“You remember the rules?” he asked, his black gaze still fixed down at the smiling Hisoka.

 

“Rules?” you asked. Neither man even looked at you.

 

“Of course,” Hisoka replied in a sugary tone. 

 

You frowned at being ignored, but the exchange made some sense. As badly as you wanted to know what the ‘rules’ were, you understood what Illumi was searching for. 

 

A liar like Hisoka could actually be quite trustworthy, as long as you trusted that he would do only what would benefit his selfish desires. Right now, he wanted something more than a fight, you could feel it in the Aura he’d accidentally released when Illumi had bit your lip.

Meaning, that had been a test. Clever, but embarrassing.

 

Accepting Hisoka’s agreement, Illumi startled you from your disgruntled thoughts to bring you into another kiss, his gaze meeting Hisoka’s right up until the second your lips touched. Staking a claim. 

 

It sent a thrill through you, but it also left you uncomfortably aware that this wasn’t a private and intimate moment. Self consciousness made you swallow down any noises you might have made as Illumi kissed you, even when his long and dexterous fingers made quick work of removing your dress.

 

You really did try to keep silent, but when the the slight breeze from the open balcony hit your bared skin, only a touch colder than Illumi’s hands, you couldn’t stifle a helpless sound.

 

He was watching, he definitely heard it. Hisoka wasn’t even touching you, yet you felt the weight of his gaze just as heavily as you felt Illumi’s body against yours. Looking, staring. You wore underwear according to Illumi’s taste. That is to say, expensive but not flashy, but what if Hisoka didn’t like it? What  _ did _ you look like to him? 

 

As if feeling your preoccupation, Illumi gave a sharp and frustrated tug to your hair to pull your lips from his. It made you mewl, a hot feeling shooting through you at the slight pain. 

 

“Am I too distracting?” Hisoka asked. The flush on your cheeks burned hotter at his delighted tone, spreading all the way to the roots of your hair. Illumi sighed, stepping away from you.

 

“You understand the consequences if you go too far, Hisoka?” Illumi asked lightly.

 

“Yes, yes,” Hisoka agreed, a dark excitement in his voice. Was it Illumi’s threat or that those words meant he was finally going to get involved? Both, probably.

 

“Tell me if you want to stop at any time,” Illumi said to you. You looked up, almost surprised at those words and the care they implied. It likely had more to do with his distrust of Hisoka than you, but you still felt a flutter of affection. 

 

“Okay,” you agreed.

 

“Take her to the bed,” Illumi said, speaking to Hisoka but looking at you with a final unreadable look. 

 

You couldn’t help but flinch at how warm Hisoka’s hands were compared to Illumi’s, at how quickly and silently he’d gotten to your side. Anxiety melted to desire when you saw that he’d already gotten out of a majority of his clothes without you noticing.

 

A lack of shame on Hisoka’s end meant his nudity wasn’t necessarily shocking, but in this context it sent a burning thrill through you. 

 

“Is Illumi always this serious?” he asked in a low voice as he dragged you to the bed, your breathing stuttering and excitement flaring. You had to think a little before coming up with a coherent answer, mind juggling the new sensations and feelings. 

 

“U-usually,” you said, word hiccuping as Hisoka pulled you onto the bed. 

 

Illumi was messing with something across the room, his shirt slung over the back of the couch in a neater fashion than the shapeless pile of red neoprene and white cotton pooled on the floor.

 

Although the heat of Hisoka’s body close behind you was distracting, you still felt far more mesmerized by Illumi’s pale and muscular torso and arms. This setting favored him in every way, a supernatural beauty of black and white as he turned to come to the bed.

 

Illumi’s hand shot out as he approached, tossing something to Hisoka before pushing off his pants and draping them over the side table. Hisoka caught it easily, the object turning out to be a relatively nondescript bottle. You looked down at it curiously, reading the sticker. 

 

A fresh wave of anticipation and nerves rushed through your body when you realized what it was and what it was used for, thighs pressed together to ease some of the growing tension. 

 

“Use a lot of it,” Illumi warned, almost entirely undressed as he joined the two of you on the bed, “If you hurt-”

 

“I got it, I got it,” Hisoka interrupted impatiently, dropping the bottle of lube to the sheets. “You don’t have to worry, I’ll be  _ very _ careful,” he promised sweetly, pulling you close against him so his voice vibrated against your back. Hisoka was so  _ hot _ , his bare chest burning against your skin. His fingers trailed across your stomach, making you shiver despite the warmth.

 

Even from a few feet distance, you could feel Illumi’s strain at watching you be held in such a way, but the hug didn’t appear to break any of his rules.

 

“Is nobody going to ask me if I’m okay with it?” you questioned, meeting Illumi’s eyes while trying to separate from Hisoka’s distracting embrace.

 

“You said you would take both of us,” Illumi pointed out candidly. Hisoka took a different approach, speaking in a syrupy purr in your ear,

 

“It’s a bit late to back out now… you’ve got me  _ all wound up _ , see?” Hisoka ground against your ass, the hard feeling of his erection unmistakable even through two layers of fabric.

 

You nearly choked on a gasp, unable to stop from squirming as your mind went temporarily blank with clouded lust and nerves. 

 

“That’s not… I mean…. I do want this, but...” your shaky words trailed off, so you settled for letting out a big breath to steady yourself, trying to push Hisoka’s arms off of you again. 

 

It was no good, he only held you tighter, his chuckle vibrating against your back.

 

“Pretending to be shy? Then why can I  _ smell _ your arousal?” he asked teasingly. 

 

Illumi sharply exhaled at those words, pulling your embarrassed gaze to meet his. While his expression was composed as usual, there was an intensity lurking beneath, his body half poised to come towards you. 

 

“Take off her underwear,” he said, an order disguised by a light tone. Illumi was using Hisoka like a toy, you realized, almost as if he was trying to keep him separate despite his physical involvement. 

 

“Okay,” Hisoka replied cheerily, not seeming to care as he unwound his arms from you to undo the snap of your bra and pull the straps from your arms. The matching panties were less lucky, Hisoka deciding that it was easier to rip the seams than try and navigate them from your legs. 

 

Illumi had seen you naked before, of course, but this felt different. Exposed in a far different way from usual. He kept your eyes locked on his, relatively unaffected by the whole thing. His absolute possession of control made you feel as if you were spiraling for two, a wonderfully frightening feeling of falling.

 

“Touch her,” was his next demand, made to Hisoka but spoken while looking into your eyes.

 

Hisoka reacted physically to those words, a low groan rising from his chest. The sound brought a new spread of heat to your cheeks and down your bare chest. Illumi didn’t often moan or cry out, so to hear a sound like that now felt  _ dirty _ .

 

“Okay,” Hisoka said again, in a much darker tone. He wasted no time in brushing his palms up your stomach, one hand cupping your breast with a surprising amount of gentleness and the other sliding down to the top of your thigh. Touching you, literally. It was very nearly playful.

 

That is, until he took your nipple between his fingers, pinching the sensitive skin and making your back arch with a small cry of surprise. It seemed that had only been a distraction, since Hisoka took that moment to get his hand between your thighs.

 

A vibrating groan resounded against your back when Hisoka ran his fingers between your slick folds, a harmony to your own whimper.

 

“You’ve barely been touched and you’re dripping,” Hisoka cooed happily, spreading the wetness up to rub a few experimental strokes over your swollen clit, “Did Illumi train you like this, or are you just naturally a slu-”

 

“Hisoka,” Illumi cut in sharply, stopping him from finishing that question. The threat only drew a deep laugh from the man behind you. You didn’t miss the way Hisoka ground especially hard against you at the touch of danger in Illumi’s tone, either. 

 

Your eyes were full of lust, curbed only by a sliver of bashfulness as you met Illumi’s dark gaze. With the way Hisoka was working quick circles over your clit, how Illumi was watching you be touched so shamelessly with his own arousal a nearly tangible thing, you felt more aware than ever of the heady reality of the situation.  

 

“Care to join?” Hisoka cooed to Illumi over your shoulder, “You look lonely.”

 

Illumi’s eyes flicked upward to meet his, humming in assent. 

 

The whine of objection you made when Hisoka pulled his fingers from you was, perhaps, a bit pathetic, but Illumi provided a solid distraction when his cold hands caressed your heated skin. You’d gotten used to Hisoka’s warmth, making Illumi’s coolness feel especially icy. Incredibly welcome, his touch made you shiver deliciously. 

 

Your eyes opened -when had they shut?- when you heard the telltale sound of something being squeezed from a bottle. As if he’d been waiting for it, Illumi pulled you into him, making it easier for a lubricated finger to slide down to circle the tight ring of muscle around your back entrance, working its way inside without much warning.

 

Illumi captured you in a kiss at the same time, keeping you distracted from the feeling and swallowing any sounds you couldn’t help but make at the foreign penetration.

 

Hisoka was moving with an assurity you didn’t doubt came from a certain amount of experience in this area. 

 

It wasn’t terrible. Not at all. Truthfully, Illumi’s warning about hurting you was pretty pointless. As an assassin, it would take more than a particularly rough pounding in the ass to break you.

 

Although, to your lust hazed brain, being broken in that way had a certain appeal.

 

Wanting to participate a bit more, you slid a hand into Illumi’s underwear, confidently taking him in hand and beginning to pump the shaft. He broke the kiss, pushing his underwear down to allow you better access before his hands tightened into a bruising grip on your hips. Illumi didn’t gasp or moan, but the taunt pull of his body was proof that he wanted this as badly as you did.

 

Hisoka worked another finger into you, and you were surprised by how good it felt, sending sparks of pleasure to your core. You moaned loudly, reaching back with your other hand to touch Hisoka, too. Unlike Illumi, he made no efforts in remaining silent, moaning even louder than you were as his hips pushed his length into your hand at the same pace as the fingers in your ass.

 

It made you realize how badly you wanted more, the consuming need to be filled and taken driving you wild.

 

“I’m ready,” you gasped out, the longing in your voice clear as your hands stopped. It didn’t matter if it was really true or not, because you couldn’t wait a second more. They were more than ready, too. 

 

Keeping eye contact, Illumi’s fingers dipped down to test your declaration. To put it bluntly, you were obscenely wet. ‘Ready’ was an understatement, and he knew it. Hisoka groaned.

 

“Illumi, are you trying to tempt me?” he asked, his voice strained rather than playful as he pulled his fingers away.

 

“Of course not,” Illumi replied easily, sitting back and stretching out his legs, brushing his long hair back impatiently.

 

Biting your lip, you peeked behind yourself. Since he’d been behind you the whole time, it was only now did you see Hisoka’s face. His sharp yellow eyes, the faint flush on his cheeks. Seeing him without the makeup was still strange, but the effect was quite sexy. And intimidating. Attractive. Aroused. He caught your gaze, smiling at you in a way that made you feel all sorts of filthy. 

 

Propped on one arm, Illumi ripped your gaze from Hisoka’s by impatiently guiding you to straddle him. It only occured to you now that keeping Hisoka behind you had been a purposeful scheme on his end to remove any trace of intimacy between you, keeping him out. 

 

That thought disappeared as you looked down at Illumi. Like this, you were in a relative position of power. You could count on your fingers the amount of times he’d allowed you to be on top, and all of them had been so thoroughly controlled by him, it had hardly equated to any amount of dominance on your end.

 

It seemed this time was no different. Illumi pulled you down on him without pause or to allow you a moment to adjust, not stopping until you were fully seated. Full.

 

Well, that wasn’t right. Half full. Nervous anticipation and excitement fluttered through you, driven to a burning heat by the satisfaction of having Illumi inside you.   

 

Slowly, Illumi rolled his hips against yours, keeping you low instead of actually thrusting just yet. Keeping the two of you wholly connected. Your hands braced against his pale chest, glad for the stability of his body. 

 

Too caught up in the overwhelming stimulus, the sounds of your whimpering filling the room, you didn’t even feel Hisoka come up behind you until he was already lining himself up to enter you.

 

For a fraction of a second, you had the feeling of helplessness, a sensation of ecstatic unreality about what was going to happen. And then cold hands on your hips lifted you up, a hot hand pushed your back down, and Hisoka pushed into you from behind.

 

Whatever small amount of fullness you’d managed to imagine when Hisoka had been preparing you with his fingers was nothing in comparison to the reality of it. It hurt, of course it hurt a little, but the pain so easily became pleasure when they started moving.

 

“You’re so  _ tight _ ,” Hisoka groaned. Your only response was a whine of wordless appreciation, rising in volume when he pulled his -thankfully trimmed- nails across your back, pulling chills to the skin. 

 

Before, Illumi had been a shield to keep the breeze from the open balcony from brushing your sweat shined body, but now it caressed you and surrounded you, the cold and the hot personified in every physical way against your flushed skin. 

 

The rush of it all left you unable to much other than follow the synchronized pace set by both men, three bodies moving together with an unexpected naturalness. Arms braced on Illumi’s chest, you followed their lead, trying to keep from becoming overwhelmed by how full you were. With both the physical and the spiritual, they pushed into you, and you were near the point of bursting.

 

Despite that, the swell still was building. The pulses of pleasure promising to well and truly consume you. Greedily, you wanted it, ached for it, craved it with every scattered thought and incoherent plea that left your lips.

 

“Ah… You make me feel so  _ wonderful _ . You’re such a  _ good girl _ to take us both like this. You’d think you were made for it... Illumi’s a lucky man,” Hisoka purred, his voice heavily affected by pleasure, the words giving you sticky sort of lust.  

 

That praise didn’t only affect you, it seemed, since Illumi’s breath caught in what could only be considered a low sound of arousal. It was unbearably sexy, almost too much so in tandem with the physical sensations overtaking your mind.

 

“I c-can’t,” you got out in a trembling voice, wanting to be touched, to get off  _ now _ , “Please, I need-”

 

Your words cut off with a cry at a particularly hard thrust from Illumi.

 

“You don’t,” he told you, matter-of-fact, his voice not showing even half of the strain you felt. Illumi was right, at this rate you wouldn’t need to be touched to come, but you still wanted it to the point that you felt tears welling in your eyes.

 

“How cruel, Illumi… Can’t you feel how  _ badly _ she wants it?” Hisoka asked with a honeyed delight made thick with arousal.

 

“ _ Please _ ,” you begged in agreement, desperate.

 

“Not yet,” Illumi said, but you could hear more effort in the words, his control slipping a bit. Hisoka laughed breathlessly at your protesting keen.

 

The unfairness, the complete and utter powerlessness, wasn’t as disturbing as it might have been to your sane mind. In fact, the mixture of pleasure, of despair, of frustration - It all created a need more intense than you could remember ever feeling before, an intoxicatingly powerful hunger and an agonizingly tight coil of release so close to snapping, to flooding you with one of the few drugs that had an actual affect on you tolerant body, that you could taste it. 

 

They were close, too. Hisoka’s low sounds a beautiful and sexy complimentary track to your own high pitched moans and cries, to the staccato of Illumi’s breathing an anchor of familiarity to hold on to as you found yourself slipping. 

 

You felt so good it hurt, the bruising grip of the hands on your skin, the electrifying mash of hot and the cold, the pounding rhythm they created between themselves inside of you. Using you, being used.

 

“Illumi-” you whispered, the sound of a person begging for life itself. Not that his permission necessarily mattered, now. You were on the edge of coming, he couldn’t stop it.

 

Instead, his response was the thing to well and truly push you over that edge, a low groan and the pain of his fingers curling even further into your hips.

 

Their merciless assault didn’t give you a sweet release of tender heat, but a molten feeling of breaking, of your body’s final lapse of control in the form of a release so intense you couldn’t be sure of how good it even felt. 

 

Hisoka’s and Illumi’s strength and control was the sole thing that kept you from shuttering apart as you came completely undone, distantly aware that the fullness was not only the the liquid rush of ecstasy pulsing through you, but from the messy release when they found their own ends in the cruel use of your over sensitive lower half. 

 

The pain was still pleasurable, though, it was a completeness within you. The fulfillment of being the vessel of satisfaction for a lover. Or, two lovers. 

 

You couldn’t forget Hisoka, considering how loud he was. It wasn’t just moaning, either, but a stream of words about how  _ good _ you felt, how  _ sweet _ it was, how much  _ fun _ it would be to kill you. If you were at all able to focus, it certainly would have embarrassed you. Or scared you.

 

Mostly, it just became a backtrack to your clouded mind, another nice sensation in the wake of your orgasm. 

 

Discomfort and embarrassment could come later.

 

When Hisoka pulled away, you rolled off of Illumi onto the bed, any pain or soreness ignored by your dazed and happy mind as you bathed in the warm wake of bliss. 

 

“You broke the rules,” Illumi said, piercing your bubble. You opened your eyes slowly in confusion, but he was talking to Hisoka.

 

“I have no idea what you mean,” Hisoka replied innocently, although the sly smile he wore begged to differ. 

 

Illumi sighed, brushing his hair back. 

 

“Maybe I should just kill you, after all.”


	30. Yandere Pariston Hill Prompt: “Maybe if I branded you, other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.”

“Where are we?” you asked Pariston, trying your best to hide your distrust and trepidation from him.  

As it stood, you were already on his bad side. For the past few days, ever since he caught you being ‘too friendly’ with another man when he’d taken you to a party, his mood had been uncomfortably dark. Or, as was more dangerous for Pariston, bright.

But he hadn’t punished you. Something told you that this was the punishment you’d been waiting in terror for, and the dread was a painful weight in your stomach.

“It says body modification on the window,” Pariston answered in a patronizing tone, faux confusion on his face. Despite your nerves, his treatment threatened to rile you into frustration, but you fought it down with a deep breath. There was nothing good to be gained by taking his bait.

“I meant to ask why we’re here,” you clarified, keeping your voice level so as to not feed the smile you could see just waiting to emerge from the clouds of predatory excitement in his eyes.

“It’s a surprise,” Pariston replied happily, opening the door to allow you to enter the shop. The inside was darkened by the tinted windows, and empty of anybody but a single man behind the counter. You’d never been to a place like this before, and you were certain you didn’t like it now. Despite how clean it smelled and felt, there was something dingy about the chaotic spread of line art lining the walls, something setting you on edge.

Body modification meant things like tattoos and piercings. Permanent markings. But, no matter how angry he was, Pariston didn’t ever inflict punishments that would leave a scar or lasting mark on your skin. He valued appearances too much to do that. So why would he bring you some place that would mark you on purpose?

“You’re Mister Hill?” the guy behind the counter, lanky and inked with a bored expression on his face, asked. His eyes flicked to you, expression unchanging, “This the girl?”

You tensed at how close Pariston came to stand behind you, putting an arm around you affectionately.

“Yes,” he responded with a smile.

The guy’s gaze flicked between the two of you with trace amounts of curiosity. What did it look like to him? Certainly you were too scared to look at all like the happy partner Pariston forced you to pretend to be, and Pariston’s immaculate suit was almost cartoonishly opposed to the decor of the shop.

“I’ve gotten everything ready so I’m ready to start whenever she is,” he said, curiosity dropping as he came out from behind the counter to go to a chair and prepared station.

A tattoo chair. Was Pariston going to make you get a tattoo? Out of all the punishments he’d ever inflicted, you supposed a tattoo wasn’t the worst. At least they could be removed. Something felt off about that assessment, though. Out of all the sadistic things he’d ever done, why go easy on you now?

“You’ll behave, won’t you?” Pariston asked sweetly, his voice a low whisper in your ear. You pushed down your first instinct to agree and placate him.

“What is this, Pariston?” you asked, instead.

“I told you, it’s a surprise,” he replied gleefully, his voice turning dark as he continued, arm tightening around you, “But, if you choose to embarrass me and make a fuss, I’ll be very upset… Do you understand?”

You felt a lump rise in your throat, body stiff. To argue with Pariston when he adopted that voice was more fatal than whatever you risked in going along with what he said, so you nodded.

“I do.”

“Good,” Pariston purred, releasing you, “Yes, she’s ready now!”

“If you’ll come lay down, we can get started,” the artist said, ignoring whatever he’d heard of your exchange. You didn’t doubt he’d been paid off handsomely for this. Even if you were to ‘misbehave’ as Pariston said, he’d be no help to you.

Uncomfortable, you sat on the reclining chair. It was cold. Laying down was worse, fidgeting against the horrible feeling of being exposed and defenseless.

“Now you said you wanted it here?” the artist asked Pariston, pointing to the spot above your left hip. His hand didn’t even touch you and you flinched. 

“A bit higher, right here,” Pariston clarified, pushing up your shirt to expose the skin of your abdomen. You shivered at the touch, your hands tightening into fists. 

“What design will the tattoo be?” you asked Pariston, trying to ignore the sounds of the artist preparing stuff to the side. He looked down at you with a frown.

“Eh? Tattoo?” he asked, seemingly genuine in his confusion. You blinked up at him, body tensing anew.

The scent of gas caught your attention, pulling your gaze to the side. The artist was messing around with a blowtorch. Fire. Not a tattoo, then, but-

Before you could react in any way, Pariston’s soft hand caressed your face, pulling your horrified eyes back to his.

 “After worrying and agonizing for days over your betrayal, I had a thought,” he told you, smiling. Always smiling.  _“’Maybe if I branded you, other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.’”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw he's branding his signature into the reader... Tacky bitch


	31. Yandere Killua + Attempted Breakup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous Asked: "Can you do a scenario of Yandere Killua's S/O almost getting kidnapped on the streets and gets saved by Killua. But she quickly finds out that it was all part of Killua's plan and she cries and breaks up with him. And then Yandere!Killua reacts."

You didn’t want Killua to leave you alone after the night you’d had, but he promised it would be quick. Just a small little errand and then he’d return, before the end of the movie you’d put on.

He’d already done so much for you, though, so you didn’t complain as much as loudly as you wanted to, wrapping yourself in a blanket and ensuing the doors were locked behind him.

Still, every second without Killua by your side made it harder not to reflect on what had happened. Your stupidity in not listening to his warnings finally coming back to bite you in the end. If he hadn’t been there-

No. You wouldn’t dwell on that.

It wasn’t long before you felt your phone go off. Thinking, or maybe just hoping, that it might be Killua, you dug around in the mess of blankets on the couch. Unfortunately, it wasn’t your phone lost among the cushions, but his.

While you weren’t the type of peep in on his business, it was kind of hard not to be curious about why he’d have three new messages from an unsaved number, hidden behind the unlock screen. After a moment of guilty deliberation, you finally unlocked his phone and opened the message app.

_She put up more of a fight than expected_

_Broke my buddies arm…_

_You owe us extra for that_

You stared down at Killua’s phone for a very long moment, unable to process what was going on from the warm safety of your blanket cocoon.

Then, cold dread clenched your heart, your eyes scanning the messages once more.

‘Broke my buddies arm…’

_The first assailant came from the back, using a move you were familiar with. Although you’d been surprised and frightened, you had taken his arm and twisted it until you heard the sickening crunch of a break. There was no victory in that, because there were more bodies, more arms reaching and grabbing and pulling and hurting-_

And this meant-

You felt sick. More than sick, your hands were shaking and eyes burning hot, bile rising in your throat with an acidic burn. Killua’s screen finally turned black, and you tossed it onto the other side of the couch in disgust.

Drawing in an unsteady breath, you pushed yourself into a sitting position, elbows braced on your knees.

Killua had paid a group of men to attack you, bruise and terrorize you. Why? So he could swoop in and save you, force you to acknowledge your vulnerability and weakness? You felt weak, all right.

These messages meant that the reason he’d left you alone, after going through all the effort of traumatizing you, was to pay off the men who attacked you. Somehow, that hurt more than anything else.

Your vision was swimming as you threw yourself to your feet and went to the room, a half baked plan in your mind as you dug out an old bag and began throwing the necessities into it. Killua had done some questionable things in the past, but you’d forgiven him. His life had been hard, and left him with his fair share of scars. But this?

Piercing the bubble of misery you were in as you quickly threw together the things you’d need to leave for a few days, the front door unlocked and opened. He was home.

You stood frozen, heart beating out of control and hands shaking, your intentions made obvious by the half packed bag on the bed. What were you going to say? Seeing you weren’t on the couch, Killua called your name in confusion, but quickly cut off.

Seconds later, he appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame as he looked at his phone calmly. The brighter light behind Killua lit his white hair like a messy halo, but shadowed his sharp features unnervingly, a devilish angel.

You waited for him to say something, unable to even draw the breath to speak. Seeing Killua, oddly enough, filled you with guilt. Guilt for prying when you shouldn’t have. Guilt for being so angry at him. Guilt-

And pain.

“I’d have liked to tell you myself, but-” Killua said, pocketing his phone to regard you with an unreadable expression, shrugging blithely, “Well, it is what it is.”

The casual way that he addressed the situation threw you off, how could he be so calm?

“You admit it, then?” you asked, clearing your throat of the thickness of emotion, “You hired those men to.. To attack me.”

Killua looked at you for a prolonged moment before he pushed himself off the door frame.

“Yeah,” he replied easily, without any particular intonation. 

“Why?” your voice was small, lacking any sort of fire or the anger he deserved. All you felt was betrayal and confusion.

“Because you won’t listen to me,” Killua explained reasonably, “I’ve warned you before that it’s dangerous for you to be so stupid and careless-”

“The only danger I’ve faced is the one you hired!” you stopped him, the shrill notes in your voice weakening your argument. “You warn me that it’s not safe, but so far the only threat to my safety is… Is…”

“Me?” Killua asked, that single word, spoken with a sense of sarcasm, turning your insides to ice. His eyes were dark, shadowed, a humorless smile twisting his lips.

“Y-yeah,” you replied weakly, feigning at least some strength against his intimidating demeanor.

“You’re naive, then,” he spat derisively, “Those men were nothing more than a lesson to scare you a little. Did you honestly think they were dangerous?” Killua asked mockingly, taking another step to you, forcing you to look up at him, “I could have beaten them by the time I was five, but you’re so weak the most you could do was break an arm. If I weren’t there, what would you have done? What if someone looking for me approached you, would you be able to defend yourself against a powerful Nen user?”

Your hands tightened into fists at his callously patronizing behavior, at his inability to see why he was wrong or what the actual issue was. Killua had never been so bluntly cruel, pulling something caustic and vicious out of you. The desire to hurt him in return.

”That’s not important!” you protested with a growing anger, “I can’t understand why you’d use such underhanded tactics to scare me into doing as you wanted… Can’t you see how unhealthy that is?” You took a deep breath, your anger pushing you to bring out the only weapon you could against him, “Guess you really are a Zoldyck, through and through.”

It was a mistake to say that, you knew that before even speaking. Yet, you didn’t fully realize your stupidity until the air became charged and electric, all the little hairs on your body standing on end and the combination scent of Killua’s sweet Aura with something like ozone. A storm front, condensed and weaponized into the man in front of you.

Distantly, you realized your movie must have ended, for the house was unsettlingly silent. Like an animal running from the threat of storm clouds, you tried to move away, to escape the oppressive feeling of being so near Killua like this.

“If I were like _them_  I wouldn’t have saved you. I would have allowed those men to break and hurt you until you found a way to escape,” Killua told you darkly, stopping you from moving away from him by grabbing your arm, holding it up so you were forced to meet his cobalt eyes. “I would lock you up in a cell underground so you couldn’t get hurt. Or maybe scramble up your brain so you wouldn’t be able to disobey me, so that you would follow my orders no matter what.”

Killua’s gaze was burning yours, his body so close that the snapping electricity of his Aura was actually painful, running down your arm and making the muscles tense and spasm.

“Killua s-stop,” you plead, all of your anger given away to fear of the person in front of you, “You’re scaring me.”

He didn’t respond at all to those words, continuing on with the dark calm,

“Hey,” he asked, an eerie lightness in his tone, “If we fought right now, do you think you could beat me?” 

You swallowed hard, shaking your head.

“N-no.”

Another moment passed, tense and frightening. Then, just as quickly as it’d been triggered, the act dropped. Killua’s Aura relaxed, his expression becoming more like the Killua you knew. He released your arm, looking at your teary face with wide, almost surprised, eyes.

“I-” he began, seemingly as shocked by his reaction as you were. Then his expression hardened. Not in a cruel way, but with firm resolve. “Even if you leave me now, you’ll be in danger from the people who would use you to target me. I can’t protect you unless you listen to me, and I don’t-” Killua’s voice cut off, and he took a heavy breath, “I don’t want to lose you. Not you.”

Blue eyes that only a minute ago had been dark and terrifying were now wide and vulnerable with emotion as they met yours.

The need to vomit pushed on your throat, a full body weakness filling you from either his electric Aura or the fight itself, but you realized you couldn’t leave tonight. You realized you couldn’t fight Killua as he drew you into his arms, holding you close.  


	32. Nightmare Incubus Hisoka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn't a request, but something I wrote awhile ago ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ It's like... Nightmare on Elm Street meets Incubus AU lol... But disturbing and without sex. I had a few of these sort of things planned in my old documents, I do love me some AU's....

It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds for you to become fully aware. Not like waking up -you couldn’t wake up to a dream after all- but your mind needed a moment to come to understand where you were and why you recognized it.

An agonizingly long few seconds to remember why the weightless feeling of robust health was familiar, and why the candy pink sky wasn’t at all strange to your eyes.

It didn’t take long before you figured out that you’d fallen asleep again, and this was a nightmare. Not your nightmare, though. This was the place you couldn’t remember in the waking world, the one your conscious mind rejected.

From far away, you heard the merry-go-round’s music, but that was the only eerie sound that drifted into the large carnival courtyard.

There was no need to move slowly now that you knew where you were, now that you could remember the other dreams you’d had in this place. No need to think too hard about the anger you felt at being brought back here against your will as you clenched your teeth and rolled over to slam your clenched fist into the hard pastel bricks with all your strength.

At first, feeling pain in this world had been no different from reality. Pain had been overbearing and frightening. But understanding that you would be healed gave you a different mentality, and that’s all that pain in this world really was. Mentality. The feeling of your hand being broken by the force of your punches didn’t hurt the way you almost wanted it to, your mentality changed by this abnormal place.

Still, the bones jammed and cracked against the brick, the skin splitting and splattering blood, but that healed quickly. So you hit it again, swearing in a steady stream as angry tears welled up in your eyes. Why? Why had this happened to you again? Why was this demon torturing you?

Living had become a nightmare by your constant exhaustion and vague memories of these dreams, but here, in a place that was actually a nightmare, you felt wide awake.

And it was all his fault.

“God damnit!” you shouted, rolling onto your back to look at the pastel pink sky with its cotton candy clouds as your knuckles healed again.

Pain was a mentality. Your headache was gone, the constant aches and pains you’d learned to ignore had disappeared, the bruises you had from martial arts practice nothing more than a distant memory.

You would have laid there longer, refusing to give in and look for him, until you felt his approach.

Casting no shadow, the dreaded figure of the demon who’d been plaguing you appeared. His heeled shoes clicked against the brick in an oddly satisfying way when he approached, entering your periphery with a burst of bright color to contrast the muted pastel tones of his world.

“My, my, what are you in such a bad mood?” Hisoka asked, that smile you’d come to really despise evident in his tone.

Finally, you got up the willpower to look directly at him. He’d changed since the last time you’d been here, his hair sporting a more magenta hue and his clothes back to a black, red, and white color scheme. Even his star and teardrop makeup (or were they some sort of tattoos?) had changed colors.

He looked good ( _of course he did, that was the point_ ) but that just made you more angry.

It was all  _his_  fault, everything was because of him. Because he’d decided to hijack your dreams for his own twisted amusement. Because a demon wouldn’t care about the suffering they inflicted, and especially not one who’d been corrupted to the point of this terrible hyper-sane madness.

Hisoka’s goal was to wear you down and God did you feel like he was one step away from managing to do that but like hell would you let him know.

So you narrowed your eyes into a glare to mask your fear and got to your feet, refusing to feel uncomfortable with the way he towered over you.

“Leave me alone,” you demanded, clenching your fists tightly so you could have the strength to meet those catlike yellow eyes. “I’m not your toy, and I’m not interested in playing. So put me back, now.”

“How scary,” he cooed, “I’ll let you go back to sleep-”

He paused dramatically, and although you knew there’d be a catch you still felt a flicker of silly hope before he added,

“On one condition.” Hisoka held up one long, pale finger, edged by a wicked looking claw.

“What is it?” you asked cautiously. Yes, you were annoyed and angry, but you weren’t stupid enough to not be afraid of him.

“I want to fight you,” he said simply, extending a hand in invitation. Your heart unhelpfully stuttered. The last time you’d fought things hadn’t gone too well, a memory you’d be unlikely to forget any time soon.

“Why?” you questioned, crossing your arms to take the defense against the spike of fear.

“You’re such a smart girl, you’ve only been here three times before and already you understand how my world works. You’ve grown so much…” Hisoka’s delight took on an edge of manic pleasure before he backed off to add, “Don’t worry, I have no intention of breaking you just yet. No… I only want a taste.”

“What are the conditions of the fight?” you asked with stifled disgust, trying to ignore the sick feeling his particular choice in words gave you.

Honestly you were unsure at this point exactly what Hisoka desired. He certainly wasn’t an incubus in the way you’d always thought of them, who cared only for lust. Not that you didn’t think Hisoka didn’t act out of some kind of lust, it was just far less conventional than the type you’d always imagined.

Less conventional than the presumed motives of a type of demon you hadn’t believed in before now. Right.

“Conditions? None. After we fight I’ll return you to your body so you may sleep. I promise,” Hisoka smiled, spreading his hands in a gesture of innocence.

“Fine,” you said, knowing there was no point in arguing too hard about this. It didn’t matter if he got his kicks from fighting, at least he couldn’t do anything worse without consent.

It still struck you as almost funny that demons of lust drew the line at rape.

You watched as Hisoka rounded the large courtyard, his heels a sharp sound in contrast to the light lilt of carousel music.

He had no weapons but you didn’t doubt that he, literally, had a card up his sleeve. It wasn’t like he needed to fight dirty to win, though.

Even with that annoyingly defeatist mentality, you began to strategize as you fell into a ready stance opposite from him. You had to move quick, not telegraph your attacks, and find ways to distract him. Unless you found a way to keep his gaze fixed on something else, you’d never land a blow.

Last time you’d been overwhelmed by his speed, but after spending more time in his world you could begin to understand how he’d moved so quickly. Pain was a mentality, but so was speed. If you believed only that your body would move according to normal rules and logic, you’d lose.

“Go,” Hisoka said, that quiet word reaching you clearly despite the distance between you.

Just like last time, he made no attempt to make the first move, simply waiting for you to come to him. Cocky.

You felt a rush of anger at that lack of respect for you as an opponent, fighting the useless emotion down as you moved into a stance to run and attack.

Your shoes barely made any sound against the ground with the inhumanly fast speed you were able to achieve, the wind it created whipping your clothes and hair around you as you zeroed in on your target and launched into the first punch aimed at his jaw.

Hisoka neatly side-stepped the simple-minded blow, his clawed hand snapping into a jab at your side. You’d anticipated something like that, falling to the ground to get out of the way and use the momentum of pushing from the ground like a coiled up spring to rush out a flurry of punches. His expression didn’t even change as he moved around them all, igniting a feeling of anger that he didn’t even have to try to be better than you.

It was almost funny, in a morbid way. You were, literally, throwing yourself at him. Hisoka wasn’t even attacking back, just countering your pathetic attempts in fighting against him and still keeping the upper hand.

It made you angry.

Anger made you careless.

You landed hard on the ground, your body rolling from the force of the kick Hisoka had delivered to your chest. When you came to a stop -dizzy, breathless, and broken- there was no need to look to know that your ribs were caved in, your lungs were destroyed.

The agonizing wounds were fatal, and even though they were already mending before you’d hit the ground, your brain recognized that nature dictated you should die. It wasn’t like you could die in a dream, though, and there was nothing natural about the situation you were in.

When the damage was mostly repaired, the need to expel all the excess blood became unavoidable. With a sound somewhere between a gag and a choke, you rolled over to vomit and cough it all out.

With each round of violent convulsions, an obscene amount of blood splashed over the pastel colored cement beneath you, covering your hands and clothes no matter how you tried to keep yourself braced up. The distinctly disgusting metallic and acidic flavor of it became all you could taste or smell.

Once, this much blood would have scared you. Now, knowing that Hisoka had watched this entire ugly fit with what you didn’t doubt to be a gleeful smile, it just made you more mad.

Once it was over, your eyes rose to look at your opponent. Seeing him, the world was dyed in red. It was a vivid and ghastly crimson, the color of your blood and the color of the rage you felt for the demon standing across from you in this demented carnival arena.  

Anger was acid, the flavor of everything you’d thrown up burning your throat and making your head dizzy. Anger was energy, pushing you to stand up and face Hisoka once more. Anger was the only thing that mattered to you at that moment.

Hisoka was smiling, looking utterly thrilled by what had just happened. The ugly and terrible emotion his expression drew up within you made your head spin, your spine tingle with the urge for violence and movement.

“I’ll find a way to kill you. I promise you that I’ll-” your uneven voice cracked painfully, your body convulsing as you coughed up a bit more blood into your sleeve. You wiped your mouth and teary eyes, settling for simply glaring at him as you decided how you were going to attack.

Hisoka was obviously pleased by your threat, by your display of bravado. He spoke across the carnival yard in a terribly familiar seductive purr, a sound that haunted you wherever, even when you were awake.

No. Especially when you were awake, a ghostly voice you were unsure of how you knew making your spine tingle.

“How nice… how lovely…. When you look at me with those eyes -that expression… You’re getting me all…”

Hisoka stopped, letting a breathy groan, his eyes closing as if to orient himself.

You looked away with hot cheeks, your stomach twisting uncomfortably despite yourself. Whenever he said things like that, it was like you could feel his lust, for blood and otherwise. It should have disgusted you, but all you could feel was fear. Fear that he’d make good on that threat, but also fear of your own response.

Was the lust of an incubus infectious? Your feelings had to be some sort of demon magic, you couldn’t believe that you would ever feel even the slightest bit of attraction for  _something_  like him.

Hisoka laughed at your discomfort, continuing in a more friendly tone,

“Let’s play a game, then, hmm? If you can hit me… I’ll give you a prize.” The invitation was exaggerated by him raising his long, pale hand to you. Smug and self assured. Bolstering yourself, you met his gaze, looking into those inhuman yellow eyes.

His words had reminded you of your rage. The feeling was like a familiar friend, making your jaw clench, and your hands, which were tacky with half-dried blood, tighten into white knuckled fists.

“What about sending me home?” you asked him, eyes narrowed in angry suspicion. You weren’t really sure why you had believed he’d do what he said in the first place.

“I changed my mind. Wouldn’t you like a prize?” he asked sweetly. You let out a heavy breath.

“What prize?” your voice was hard.

“Well, what do you want?”

“To see what expression you make when I kill you,” your reply was instantaneous.

Hisoka looked delighted.  

“Are you flirting with me?” he asked happily, his heels clicking on the ground as he began walking towards you.

“You’re disgusting,” you spat in return, forcing yourself not to flinch as he came closer.

“Ah.. Now I know you’re flirting with me… Now attack… Or shall I make you?”

That slight reminder of when he’d controlled you like a demented puppet was what did it. It wasn’t the thought of the prize, because you weren’t sure if you could actually hit him, but you didn’t care. You were so angry, seeing red as if the world was colored with the gruesome color.

With a horrible noise like the howling of a feral cat, you launched yourself at Hisoka.

Of course he’d counter and you’d lose this stupid and unwinnable ‘game’. There was nothing you could do about that, you doubted even a decade of combat training would prepare you to win against Hisoka, but you didn’t care about that, either.

You’d fall to the ground, cracked like a cheap glass doll, but you’d always get back up.

You expected a similar counter to the ones he’d dealt previously, your body colliding with the blunt pain of a fist or foot because you weren’t skilled enough to hide your intent to punch his stupid smug face. You knew that pain, and you were ready for it.

Instead, two clawed fingers simply reached out and jammed into your eye sockets, his thumb braced against your forehead to stop you.

You didn’t feel it at first, you didn’t even understand what had happened. Too many connections had been broken by his long fingers. One second you’d been attacking, and the next you were stumbling back, his fingers sliding out of your skull and your body collapsing onto the hard ground.

Then, the wires of your brain connected, the deepest damage dealt with first.

To say that your scream was inhuman wasn’t an overstatement, it ripped up your throat and brought up fresh blood, not that you cared about that.

The hands that were already covered in mostly dried blood were shaking, not trembling, but shaking. You pressed your wavering palms over your eye sockets, protecting them.

In the face of such intense panic, you couldn’t remember that you’d be healed. All you could think was that you were blind, that you were defenseless, that the pain was utterly overwhelming, and you were choking on fear. Or blood, but what was the difference?

You felt Hisoka climb on you, his legs straddling your hips. You were powerless to fight him, to struggle. Without your vision, bathed in agony, you were completely and utterly defenseless.

“S-stop! STOP!” you screamed hoarsely, thrashing as much as you could with your hands still firmly covering your eyes. He only pushed down harder, grinding onto you to force you to be still.

“I want to see,” he told you, pulling your hands away from your ruined eye sockets with a hold that your shock-filled body simply couldn’t match. Fear struck your heart anew when you realized you should have been seeing light, but didn’t. There was nothing but pain and fear. The dark. You were, suddenly, so afraid of the dark. Terrified.

His warm fingers pulled the loose flesh of your eyelids with a nasty sound. You felt like you were going to be sick, really, really sick. Weak and trembling, your blood slicked hands held onto his wrists. Not to pull them away, but just to have something steady to hold onto.

“How nice…” he cooed.

His words reminded you. You were going to heal. The pain was already dulling. Was that from him? The healing itself probably should have been agonizing. Could you call this mercy? Mercy from the monstrous demon who had just gouged out your eyes for his own pleasure.

After what seemed like an eternity, Hisoka let go of your eyelids, and they closed against the familiar shape of your eyeball.

Only seconds later, you registered light on the other side of the pink screen of flesh, and you opened your eyes without delay. At first, it was just light and the bloody tears you had to blink out of the way. Then, you could see. It was as if it hadn’t happened in the first place.

The relief that flooded your body at being able to see again was very nearly sweet.

The sky was pastel pink, but right then it looked so beautiful. The wispy clouds were so charming. Even the demon on top of you, with all of the vivid colors he wore, looked so nice.

“See, that wasn’t so bad,” Hisoka said, grinning down at you.

Had that been… a joke? You looked at him with fear and a subdued kind of hatred. His right hand still bore traces of the gore stolen from your skull, resting on his thigh. And up his thigh…

This was a new low for him. Becoming aroused by literally gouging out your eyes.

“Get off of me,” you demanded in a shrill tone, pushing his legs and trying to wiggle out from under him without grinding yourself against him anymore than absolutely necessary. “You’re.. you’re..” you sputtered, unable to think of an appropriate word to hurl at him that properly described how absolutely abhorrent he was.

Hisoka caught you from getting away, leaning over your torso so his face was only inches from your own. You froze, able to feel everything when he was on top of you like this and still reeling from the fear of what he’d just done.

It was fear that you felt, but it was also the fact that an obviously attractive guy was on top of you. You felt vulnerable. Weak.

“Irresistible? Unbearably handsome?” Hisoka murmured, his lips brushing your cheek. You could feel his smile.

“God! Fuck you!” you cried in whiny exasperation, pushing on his chest with all your strength. You didn’t care about pretenses anymore, you just wanted this nightmare to end.

“Mmm?” Hisoka purred, a sound you could feel when he was right on top of you. It made you shutter, still pushing. “Calling out another man’s name? How unfaithful…” he said, his tone caught between humor and arousal.

“That’s-” you groaned in frustration, “Get off!”

He leaned up a bit, supporting himself more on his elbows to give you a flat look.

“Do I even need to say it?” he asked. His lips quirked at your wince when you realized what you’d said.

“Mmm, but you’ve had enough for today.” Hisoka sighed before getting up with an inhuman grace.

Without his weight keeping you down, you sat up, rubbing your eyes delicately. There was no pain, but it wasn’t something you’d forget any time soon.

“Why did you-” you cut yourself off, shivering in discomfort.

“Finger you?” Hisoka asked, oh-so-innocently. You looked up with an expression of disgusted shock, but all you got was a smile.

“Yeah. That,” you replied in a hardened tone, getting up to feel less vulnerable. Not that it helped much, with him.

“Didn’t you like it? There are other ways I could feel how warm and soft you are inside, you know~” he said suggestively.

You blinked at him, hanging on the edge between disgust and hatred, before something surprising happened.

A laugh bubbled up in your chest.

Not because that grotesque form of flirting was funny, obviously not, but because it was all just so… Twisted. Once it began, stopping was impossible. It became something much more vulgar than laughing after a certain point. It felt like you were sobbing, but with a smile.

You’d been hiding behind your hair, arms up to cover your mouth, before his hand caught your chin. With a firm touch, he lifted your face so he could see.

Hisoka wore an expression like he was looking for something, his lips pursed and eyes narrowed. There was no doubt in your mind that you looked gross, sticky with drying blood and red from laughing, yet he looked at you differently than ever before.

You met his amber eyes unflinchingly, feeling invincible after that fit of laughter.

“My precious toy…” Hisoka spoke in a tone that smacked of sentimentality, if you didn’t know any better. “You’ve been such a good girl… Madness looks lovely on you, you know.”


	33. Illumi Zoldyck + Impregnation Kink

You were shaking and unsteady, grasping desperately at Illumi’s pale shoulders to find some stability amid the hard pace he still hadn’t let up on. His stamina was far beyond yours, but he didn’t usually feel the need to prove that fact so vigorously.

Illumi had pushed you to a point beyond protest, your body and mind exhausted and filled with the haze of over-indulged pleasure verging on pain. It wasn’t a matter of want or need anymore, just a constant swell of too much.  

Beneath the sound of harsh breathing, the high tones of your helpless whimpering, there was a lewd and wet sound that filled the room. The sound of Illumi fucking you with the sticky mess of his previous release and your own body’s desperate reaction to the over-stimulating pleasure easing his way.

Every hard and deep thrust of his hips had you spasming and crying out, in protest or in encouragement you couldn’t be sure anymore. You were at Illumi’s mercy, pinned and helpless beneath him, your flushed face pressed to the smooth juncture at his shoulder and neck. Stringing a coherent thought together was hard, but speaking was worse, with all of your abdomen muscles trembling and throat hoarse and dry.

“Illu… Mi… It’s… it’s too much, I can’t-”

“Endure it,” Illumi told you sweetly. So sweetly, his voice straining in a way that still managed to send a stroke of heat through you, “When you’re pregnant I won’t have to push you so hard, hm? Endure it for-” Illumi’s words broke with a low grunt. He was close, picking up the pace to something approaching frenzy. It hurt, but your cries fell on deaf ears. “-Our family.”


	34. Hisoka + Revenge Smut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, there is no canonical place for this scenario. Hisoka didn’t get all fucked up after the fight, and as a non-manga reader there are probably other things that are wrong. 
> 
> Second, you might be able to tell I use canonical dialogue as a crutch for writing his lines which I admit is a bit cheap, but it’s the way I feel I can best capture his disgusting character, yeah? 
> 
> Lastly, this is very VERY non-con. 5,000 words of Hisoka at his worst and reader going through a pretty tough night.

It was getting late, and you’d reached the zoned out zombie state of needing to go to bed. Already clad in your pajamas, an old oversized t-shirt and underwear, you shut off the TV and made your way back into your room.

Nothing struck you as odd as you entered, nor as you shut your door. There was no uncomfortable vibe, or any sense of danger as you approached your bedside table to check your phone that was meant to be on the charger.

Everything was the same as always, except, instead of a phone on your table amidst all of your other bedside clutter, there was a glossy Joker playing card. The cord was dropped uselessly beside it.

Blinking once, then twice, you tried to force your sleepy mind to cooperate in helping you understand.

A Joker card?

“You’re at work, aren’t you…” with a yelp and the crash of your bedside lamp to the floor, you turned to face Chrollo’s familiar phone-distorted voice -his familiar words that you’d replayed so often in his absence- and the man holding your missing phone playing the saved message.

“I’d have liked to hear your voice-” sitting in the chair in the corner of your room, the one Chrollo usually threw his big coat over, was a man that some part of your panic-stricken brain recognized, one leg crossed casually over the other as he held up your phone nonchalantly.

The creepy magician. One of Chrollo’s -A member of the Phantom Troupe.

“-But that’s just as well, I-”

The magician’s pale thumb casually pressed to the screen without even having to look, stopping Chrollo’s most recent message left in your inbox.

“Message Deleted, you have _zero_  saved messages,” informed the robotic voice of your phone. In your shocked state, that was the first thing to really process. Not the appearance of a dangerous clown man in your bedroom holding your phone, but the fact that he’d deleted the dozens of your saved messages from Chrollo. The only thing you were able to keep as a record of him was his voice, and now it was gone.

Strange to feel such profound loss in accompaniment with bone chilling terror. Both emotions swirled together as you stood unsteadily across the room from him, tense and short of breath, a hand pressed to your chest.

“Hisoka…” you hissed in horror, his name falling from your tongue before your mind had a chance to really process anything. Yes, Hisoka. The one Chrollo was constantly apprehensive of. The only Spider he didn’t want around you. “What.. What are you doing here?”

Hisoka smiled.

“Chrollo truly cares about you, doesn’t he,” he said, not as a question, but as a fact. You swallowed hard, trying to think past the all consuming terror that had snapped you from your sleepy state with a rush of adrenaline.

“You see, he’s done something…  _Unforgivable_ … I’m on my way to enjoy a feast, but you’re a tasty appetizer all on your own, aren’t you?”

Unforgivable? Feast? Appetizer? The words clashed in your head, their meaning lost beneath a more important question. Even self-preservation seemed of lesser value, the need to know pushing you to speak in a surprisingly clear voice,

“Is Chrollo okay?”

“You should be more worried about yourself,” Hisoka advised, a smile playing on his lips as he let your phone clatter carelessly and noisily to the floor, “You see, I no longer have any reason to  _hold back_ , and I can’t ignore the appeal of playing with someone else’s toy. Especially one as  _treasured_  as you.”

Your heartbeat was unbearably loud in the quiet following Hisoka’s little speech. Fast, too. Each rapid thud filled you not only with blood, but with a dark and sick feeling as his words finally found purchase in your mind.

Hisoka was going to kill you. That thought -the truth- hit you in slow motion. Although it should have been obvious from the moment you saw him, it was only now that you could comprehend the killing intent radiating from that corner of the room.

He was going to kill you because of Chrollo, that was the only reason you were important, really. Was it out of revenge? No… As a taunt. You understood, suddenly. Chrollo was the feast. You were the appetizer.

But that meant that Chrollo was alive. Despair tasted of ash on your dry tongue, the sole salve in knowing that you would be avenged. Your death would be avenged.

Your death.

“Well?” Hisoka asked expectantly, waving a clawed hand and breaking you from your despairing thoughts.

“Well…?” you repeated dumbly, as if on autopilot.

“Aren’t you going to run?” he asked with a grin, gesturing towards the door. You looked at him, then at it. If you were on even footing -No, even if he were just an ordinary man of great strength- you’d have a good shot at being able to leave your room before being caught. Getting away would be a decent strategy.

Hisoka was not an ordinary man.

“No,” you finally decided, resolve sharpening your voice and tightening your fists. Hisoka frowned.

“That’s disappointing,” he said, standing up. You flinched, despite the distance still kept between you.

“Monsters-” you began, clearing your throat when the word cracked, “Monsters like when their victims run, don’t they?” you asked, trying to sound brave. To be strong. “I won’t run for the sake of the chase… Not from you.”

A moment of silence passed after your bold declaration, his eyes fixed on you. Then, Hisoka laughed, his steps utterly silent as he moved towards you.

“ _Oh_ , you really are something special… I’ve always liked you, you know…”

A new card appeared between his fingers. A three of diamonds, shiny in the odd light created by your fallen lamp. His weapon. The one that would kill you.

The pump of blood rushing through your ears was deafening, your hands shaking and chest moving with uneven breath. Even still, you stood your ground. Back straight, head high, eyes on his. You could be brave. You could be strong.

_Forgive me,_  you thought, the words wishfully sent to Chrollo. Would he see your easy defeat as a betrayal? Or could he understand, accept and forgive your weakness.

Picturing Chrollo now made you feel stronger. His voice, remembered in dozens of different tones and inflections. His face, the hundreds of expressions he wore creating a hundred different men. You loved all of them. Truly and honestly, it was a fact in your mind that you would always love Chrollo. Undyingly.

Lip trembling, eyes wet, cheeks red -You knew your glare wasn’t even loosely intimidating, yet you were able to keep it focused on Hisoka’s. His eyes were gold and shadowed, pleasure and excitement reading clearly within them.

“That look on your face is making me…  _Excited_ ,” Hisoka admitted with a muted exuberance, coming closer, close enough for you to smell him. Musky, warm, a scent you’d call cloyingly sweet beneath it all. Close enough to raise the three of diamonds to your neck, which you offered unflinchingly. You wanted to run, to beg, to find a way to live. Oh God did you want to live. But that wasn’t, as the phrase went, in the cards.

So you accepted it, glaring at your murderer with as much hate and fire as you could muster, even as the pain of the card began to cut into your neck, drawing blood.

At the sight of blood, his eyebrows raised, his tongue running over his lips hungrily.

“He’ll kill you,” you told Hisoka, brave last words, “Your death is… Is one hundred percent certain.”

Time froze.

It was as if your taunt triggered a supernova on the scale of a single man. His killing intent disappeared in a second of silent calm, the room emptying of air with his sharp inhale. Then, the weight gave out. Hisoka’s Aura exploded in a bloom of suffocating violet. As it flared from his pores, it filled you, filled your room with something oppressively foul and nearly crushing. Lust for murder became lust for something more insidious, the lust for blood. For pain.  

Only seconds had passed since you’d spoken, and Hisoka didn’t bother to allow you any time to react. One moment, the knife-sharp edge of the three of diamonds was painfully digging into the skin of your neck and you were meeting the narrowed yellow eyes of your death.

In the next, he’d flipped the card out of existence, leaving nothing more than a deep cut that dripped blood down to the neckline of your t-shirt, the nightmarish sensation of his Aura, and the raspy sound of his laugh.

Monster’s laughed like men, as it turned out. Considering Hisoka’s clown-like persona, you had expected some eerie cackle, but it was worse to hear him laugh with such human glee, hand held to his face as if to control himself.  

You had been strong before, thinking that it was better to die with your head held high than to run like frightened prey. Now, hearing Hisoka’s unsettling laugh, you began to suspect that perhaps death wasn’t the worst thing to fear from him.

Pure animalistic distress burned away all of the courage you’d built up, giving into the absolute need to escape the smothering weight of Hisoka’s Aura.

Turning fast, racing heart pushing hot blood out the stinging wound on your neck at a rapid pace, you reached for the doorknob. Hisoka finished his laugh with a sigh, a low growl of sound. Your hand hadn’t even managed to close around the cold metal before his sought the leash of your hair to pull you back.

“I’ve changed my mind,” Hisoka told you with leftover humor darkening his tone, practically throwing you backwards. You couldn’t stop yourself, the momentum carried you to stumble and fall, bouncing in an awkward heap on the soft surface of your bed. “I’d hate to waste such a wonderful opportunity…”

The same instinctual drive that screamed at you to run had you scrambling in desperate escape as Hisoka followed you down to the bed, pushing yourself with your arms and legs to the headboard. He caught you easily, his hand wrapping around your ankle and pulling you back down roughly, the material of your shirt bunching and riding up, exposing your bare stomach and underwear. Almost completely exposed to him.

“Do you normally wear so little to sleep… Or were you expecting me?” Hisoka asked with a teasing smile, caging you in with his arms as he crawled up your body. Even when your flailing attempts at attacking and pushing him away landed, he seemed not to notice. Weakness had never left you feeling so pathetically vulnerable.

“You’re disgusting,” you told him, the brittle terror in your voice doing little to bolster your attempt to use anger as a shield. Still, you tried, “Stop,  _now_ … I don’t know what Chrollo did to you, but-”

Yellow eyes widened at the mistaken mention of Chrollo’s name, and Hisoka decided to mute your words with the violent crash of his lips against yours. He didn’t act with the sensuality of a lover, but with an unrestrained passion as animalistic and base as your unthinking panic, as if he were feeding off of that primal feeling. Your muffled cries of protest mixed with the low noises you could feel vibrating through the hot weight of his body pressed down against yours.

Hisoka’s kiss was sloppy, too excited and frenzied to be even halfway comparable to the precise and dominating way Chrollo kissed you. It was wet, tasting of the overly sweet artificial flavor of bubblegum. It was vicious, his teeth seeking your lip to bite down when you at first refused to open your mouth to him.

All the while hot hands were exploring your exposed and fluttering stomach, pushing up and over the flinching skin until he reached the tender skin of your breasts, cupping them in hands too large, too rough, and tipped with dangerous claw-like nails.

It was impossible to help the way your back arched when Hisoka ran his thumbs over your nipples, pinching them to the edge of pain until they were stiff and aching beneath his touch. Even worse than your bodies reaction was the sound that left your lips, something that couldn’t possibly be called anything other than a loud moan as he allowed you to finally break the kiss and turn your head away.

It was a horrible, traitorous sound. A reward to his unwanted touch.

“Stop,” you said again, despair and breathlessness weakening the demand into a plea.

“It’s been awhile since Chrollo visited you, hasn’t it…” Hisoka said with a smile, his breath brushing your cheek as he slowly played with your still aching nipples, “I can tell. You’re all… _Sensitized_ … From his absence…”

A particularly hard roll of his fingers pulled a half stifled pained whimper from you, your body twisting in a disgustingly suggestive way at the shock of heat it sent through you. Hisoka moaned in response, a low and dirty sound, “Yes… This is going to be even more fun than I thought…”

Hate filled you at his honeyed tone, at the excitement you could feel pulsating above you. Hatred for your body’s helpless response.

“I hope he makes you suffer before you die,” you said, refusing to look at him, staring at the pattern of light your fallen lamp created on the wall, “I hope you scream in agony all the way down to hell.” You spoke weakly, but the words themselves felt good. The satisfaction of getting them out without stuttering making you uncaring of the consequences that might follow such inflammatory statements.

That is, you didn’t care when you expected his reaction to be violent. Instead, Hisoka groaned in response. Low and vulgar, it was a sound of genuine pleasure, his hips grinding against you hard enough to feel his arousal.

“You’re even better than I hoped… I’ll make you feel so  _good_ ,” he promised in a lustful voice, his former fervor returning as he won the struggle in pushing your shirt off. The fabric was half ripped, half pulled from your arms, but the end result was the exposure of your torso, leaving you cold and defenseless against him.

Hisoka pulled his shirt off next, sitting up to straddle you as his fingers expertly untucked his neoprene undershirt and peeled it off along with the suit-symbol emblazoned overlayer. You didn’t mean to look, to give him the impression that you were attracted to him in any way, but the surprise that he’d expose himself as well drew your eyes.

It was a mistake. A very big mistake. Your gaze made Hisoka’s smirk deepen knowingly, one of his hands raising to push back his orange hair while the other played seductively down the firm lines of muscle across his chest and abdomen, stopping at the edge of his pants. What sort of cruelty was it that would make a monster so attractive?

“Oh dear… You really  _are_  unfaithful, aren’t you?” Hisoka asked playfully.

At the frightfully cheerful call-out, you averted your gaze, cheeks flushed with an embarrassment that was ill-suited for the situation.

“N-no,” you responded. No. This wasn’t what you wanted, you weren’t unfaithful. You weren’t-

Hisoka bore down on you once more, his feverishly hot skin burning bare against yours as he fell back down to his elbows, closing in.

“Chrollo cheats, too, you know,” Hisoka replied secretively, intimately close.

As badly as you wanted to ask what he meant by that, the question was driven from your mind when Hisoka’s mouth abandoned the kiss you were braced for in favor of focusing on the clean slice he’d left on your neck. The searing flat of his tongue licked up the dripped and slowly drying blood, ignoring your renewed thrashing at the pain of the feeling.

After that, Hisoka’s wet lips focused on the wound itself. To your shock, to your horror, he began sucking on the sliced skin, as if trying to leave a bruising love mark on top of the already painful injury.

For the first time, you actually screamed, fingernails digging harshly into the skin of his scalp, pulling his hair with all your strength to make him stop the agonizing pressure. Rather than make Hisoka stop, your futile efforts resulted in him taking each of your wrists in hand, pushing your arms up to slam the back of your hands into the hard surface of your headboard.

Another scream tore out of your throat, the delicate bones of your hands protesting at such treatment. Even after his hands went back to touching you, mouth refocusing in the torment on your neck, yours were stuck to the cold surface. Like they’d been glued. The only way you’d get them free would be by pulling off the skin.

With your hands unusable, all you could do was writhe beneath him, tears falling from your eyes and teeth gritted against any more noises of pain.

When Hisoka finally relented, his lips leaving the spot sore and throbbing, it was only to move lower, trailing a wet smear of blood and saliva down your neck.

“Ah…” he groaned thickly, the air of his breath raising goosebumps on the sensitive skin over your collarbones, “You’re  _sweet_ ,” Hisoka praised you in a low and candied tone, eyes flicking up to meet your wide and teary ones. Your blood was smeared on his mouth, striking against his pale skin. Disgusting, but strangely beautiful.

“What did you do to my hands?” you asked, ignoring his creepy compliment and even creepier bloodied grin.

“Bungee Gum,” Hisoka replied with a cheeky smile, as if that explained anything, “My Aura has the properties of both gum  _and_  rubber… I’ll let your hands free if you ask nicely… And promise to be more gentle.”

You glared at Hisoka. Asking you to be gentle? Asking you to be nice?

“Fuck you,” was your only reply. There was a wobbly edge of tears in your voice at the hopelessness of the situation, but you were able to maintain a venomous, if watery, glare into those hated golden eyes.

Hisoka didn’t seem much affected by your animosity. Well, not in the way you wanted, anyway.

“Do you have any idea what you look like right now…?” he asked, his pleased tone sending a twist of something dark down your spine, “It’s like you’re  _begging_  to be devoured,” Hisoka cooed, licking his lips with lust glowing in his gaze. He turned his face back to your skin, sliding down to trail his mouth across your chest. “Don’t worry… I don’t intend to let you go to waste.”

You shivered, fearful mind whirling with the need to think of a way to draw him back into conversation and away from touching you again, but it was too late. Wet with blood and saliva, his tongue traced a circle around your hardened nipple, only staying long enough to elicit a gasp from your unwilling mouth before repeating the teasing action to the other.  

A new feeling of fear struck you as he continued down past your breasts, moving his entire body down the recoiling muscles of your stomach. Your hands jerked in a panic to stop him, but his ‘Bungee Gum’ held them firmly up and away from interfering.

“What are you doing!?” you cried, struggling pointlessly against the warm hands that slid over your sides to hold your hips still. “S-stop!”

Hisoka’s claws scraped your skin as he peeled away your underwear, ripping the fabric away to expose you entirely without any sort of sympathy.

“I want to taste you…” he said, voice dripping honey as he pushed your thighs further apart. Exposing you even more despite your best efforts. “How can I resist when you’re tempting me with such a sweet scent?” Hisoka’s eyes flicked up to yours for a fraction of a second, as if checking to make sure you were watching, before he lowered himself, separating your folds with his fingers so his tongue could delve between.

The first feeling of contact was searing. It made your eyes squeeze shut, your head tossing back into the pillows so you didn’t have to watch him pleasure you like this. Distancing yourself from the sensations was impossible, however. Soon your hips were jumping to his mouth, all of your stifled moans and cries bubbling up as a useless stream of begging.

Begging Hisoka to stop, while your body sung for him to continue.

“Please, please stop, please, I- ah-” your voice cut off in a harsh pant, then a whine as he sucked particularly hard on your clit, making lewd sucking wet noises against the sensitive skin, “Please stop… I can’t- I can’t…”

Your tearful begging was pointless. Pointless because it felt good, because if Hisoka continued like this you were going to come for him. He’d been right, it had been far too long since you’d been touched, and Hisoka was incredibly enthusiastic in finding every spot that made you spasm or moan. It wasn’t teasing, or even really meant solely for pleasure.

Hisoka was devouring you, eating you out in an almost literal sense.

The pleasure was building against everything in you that knew it was wrong, against your pain and misery, against the screaming in your head that wanted it to end. Those things writhed within your mind, and even still the passion was forming into a tight ball in your core. Each stroke of his tongue was pushing you further to that edge, your cries raising in pitch, your mind slipping to the brink of ecstasy.

When you came, you didn’t even notice that your hands were freed. They lowered without any of the violence from earlier to tangle in Hisoka’s hair, holding on as your mind was emptied by the momentary relief of incandescent bliss. It didn’t matter for a second that you were moaning too loudly, or who it was between your legs. For a second, you floated.

But the world hit hard, and reality came with the impact of guilt and pain, of sweat stinging the wound on your neck and the several more shallow scrapes his nails had carved into your skin.

Hisoka was laughing as he sat up, wiping his mouth as his eyes sought yours once more. You couldn’t meet them, however, because your gaze was focused on something else. At some point of your distraction, he’d gotten out of his pants. Hisoka knelt between your legs, and you were confronted with the intimidating sight of his erection, uncovered and hard. Ready… Ready to-

“Haven’t you ever been told it’s rude to stare?” he asked, dark humor putting a playful lilt his voice. You blinked, looking up at him with a new urgency of fear guiding you to move back, to get away.

“You can’t do this…”

“I can’t?” Hisoka teased, following every inch you moved away without actually touching you, caging you in.

“Please don’t do this,” you amended, eyes wide and pleading in meeting his. Pleasure left you feeling weak. Not as afraid or angry as you knew you needed to be. Then your head bumped the headboard with a thump, and, as if that were the trigger, hands far too strong for you to fight off gripped your hips and thighs, pulling you and arranging you until-

Your scream at the pain of Hisoka’s violent intrusion cut off with a muffled sound of surprise when his mouth pressed to yours, swallowing down the sounds of your agony with lips that still had the salty trace of your wetness. He groaned, softly, shakily.

Then, both his hips and mouth began to move.

The lack of practical preparation left you woefully underprepared for being able to take the harsh pace Hisoka immediately began with. The only thing that kept it from being actually destructive to your body was the remaining wetness from your orgasm, which created an awful slick sound with each frenzied thrust.

Hisoka kissed with the same crazed mania, his tongue working into your mouth and taking away any and all semblance of space, overwhelming you entirely. Each pained whimper of yours was greedily swallowed, or loudly overshadowed by his assortment of moans, sounds you felt reverberate through his chest more than you could hear past the sloppy sound of the kiss.

When he finally allowed you to break away, to turn your face from him and attempt to get in an actual breath, it was only to run his lips across your flushed cheek, to ensure that his words were heard loud and clear against your ear.

“You feel so  _good_ ,” he told you headily, slowing to adjust positions now that the kiss was broken by bracing an arm against the headboard and wrapping the other around your waist. It brought you even closer, the way he held you forcing you to keep your arms and legs around him. To depend on him.

The position left you without leverage, completely under Hisoka’s control in some terrible imitation of intimacy.

“So  _soft_ … So  _wet_  for me…” he crooned, thrusting into you with a different sort of insistence, a more intense eagerness. The pain was fading, the feeling of Hisoka fucking you brightening into a heat. A familiar growing pleasure, already sparked by having gotten off on his tongue.

You didn’t want it, but that didn’t matter. Not to your body and certainly not to Hisoka.

“Is this how Chrollo takes you? Or is he softer… I bet he doesn’t know how sweet your despair tastes… Or how intoxicating it is to see fear fill your eyes-” Hisoka cut off with a deeper grunt, a harder thrust that made you cry out, too, your cheek pressed to his skin and face turned away in an attempt of hiding.

“D-don’t,” you protested with a pale echo of the anger you knew you should feel, wishing he’d shut up. Wishing he’d finish. Wishing this nightmare was over. Wishing he’d touch you again. Breathless laughter pushed against your chest, the hand supporting your waist curling until his nails dug into your skin, forcing your back into a further arch.

“Maybe I’ll leave you alive after all… Once I kill Chrollo and all the Spiders-” Hisoka broke off there, and you could  _feel_  him physically surge at the idea, not to mention the loud groan of pleasure he didn’t suppress at the thought. It scared you, disgusted you, but it felt so delicious, making you shutter against him. “Then, you can be  _my_  toy. Normally I don’t like second hand things, but you…”

It was impossible to tell if he was toying with you or serious, or if his arousal had clouded his desires that much. You couldn’t tell, but it didn’t matter.

“I’d rather… Rather die… than belong to you,” you got out between gasping breaths, the sentiment weakened by the unique combination of despairing lust that had overtaken your mind, by the sounds you were trying so hard to muffle.

Hisoka groaned at your rejection, holding you even tighter. From somewhere far away, you heard the dangerous crack of wood -Your headboard?- but it was hard to care, suddenly, because the way he was holding you changed the angle that you fit against him. Now, with every recklessly rough snap of his hips, you could feel the coil of tension in your core tighten, sparks of pleasure erasing everything else from your mind.

From the way you were forced to cling to him, you could not only hear, but feel every lewd and terrible sound that Hisoka made as he became caught in the throes of delirious passion, of a madness of another type. No longer did it scare or disgust you, but instead invited you along your own path of lunacy.

The feeling wasn’t  _good_  in the strictest sense, there was too much misery clouding your mind to be free enough to seek pure, unadulterated pleasure. Rather, the misery itself became the appeal. It became the tense knot he stroked with each thrust.

Pleasure coming only through the scope of pain and fear, through the hopeless and confused prayers you sent to whatever deity that would have you, mumbled aloud among the string of noises you were unable to swallow down.

Your entire body tensed and shook around him when you came undone, crying out and holding fast as the molten feeling gave way to a gooey release, filling you with heat. With the complicated euphoria of completion. It wasn’t a sweet swell, but a feeling that filled you up fast and dirty. Sticky, with your body pressed so tightly against his.

“Say my name,” Hisoka crooned, speaking to your orgasm intoxicated mind as he used you to rush towards his own end. Even in your muddled state, you were averse to giving into him. Giving into that saccharine order felt like truly surrendering any and all control you had left. Becoming a willing accessory to his pleasure.

“N-no,” you got out raspily, voice hoarse and whimpery.

The nails in your side gouged deeper, Hisoka’s pace picking up even further, hurting you as the pleasure of release became weaponized and harsh against your over-sensitive body. It made you tremble, crying out in pain at the severe shift of sensations.

“ _Please_?” he asked, the aroused sweetness holding the edge of a threat to match his cruel treatment.

You cried, the scream your body intended unable to reach pitch from how sore your throat already was, the lack of air limiting the volume.

“ _Hisoka_ ,” you relented, hoping it would make him stop. If anything, he moved even faster, held you even tighter. Using you without mercy.

“Again,” he moaned, not letting up on the pitiless pace.

“Hisoka, s- stop!” you sobbed, trying to struggle, but without any real leverage to. It felt like he was breaking you, his hips beginning to stutter unevenly in the unrelenting pound against yours as he neared the edge.

“Hisoka-” you cried, you begged, mindlessly desperate to make him stop.

With a final loud moan -a growl- Hisoka pushed deep into you, letting you drop to the bed to press into you entirely, his mouth securing against yours as he filled you. It wasn’t really a kiss, but something that felt like he was marking you. Marking you double, because you could feel it, the spurts of his sticky finish filling you deeply.  

As badly as you’d wanted it, even his pulling out from your abused hole hurt, making you tense and heave in another breathless sob.

There was no sentimentality in the way he let your rubbery limbs fall in your painful collapse on the bed. No kindness in the way he left you shaking and sweaty, flushed and crying, to kneel back and study you with those yellow eyes.

Although, perhaps it was better that way, because the most horrible action of his was the gentle caress of your chin with his fingertips. Hisoka raised your shamed and miserable eyes to his, thumb raising to pass over your swollen and bloodied bottom lip tenderly.

“Oh dear…” he said, smiling, “Are you broken already?” 


	35. Illumi Zoldyck + Hero Worship

“You’re Illumi Zoldyck.”

Whatever eloquent and flowery introduction you’d planned over the past few years disappeared as awe and nerves overrode your logical mind upon seeing him. Your hero, your savior.

He was older now, and looked different from the boy you revered in your memories, but you weren’t surprised to feel that your adoration upon seeing him wasn’t hindered in the slightest by the changes. In fact, you liked his long hair, and couldn’t really complain about the sleeveless shirt he wore, since it exposed his pale and muscular arms.

Large, dark eyes blinked down at you, his expression remaining utterly stoic.

“Who are you?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m… You killed my father,” you said, the words the first to rise to the surface of your scrambled thoughts.

“Ah,” Illumi replied, his Aura spiking as a pale hand rose, needles tucked between each finger.

Preparing to kill.

“Wait!” you said, waving your hands in panic to stop him, “No.. I’m here to thank you!” you exclaimed, eyes wide and heart pounding in fear that he’d misunderstood.

Illumi paused, considering you for a tense moment. Then, as quickly as it’d been ignited, his killing Aura faded and his hand dropped. The other people in the hotel’s lobby were looking at the two of you oddly now, although since they were Non Users you knew it was more because of your sudden shouting than the harsh feeling of an assassin’s Aura. You swallowed hard, shuffling nervously.

Off to a bad start, then. Wonderful.

“I tried to talk to you earlier, but you left the briefing really fast,” you told him, referring to the briefing for the assassination job you were both hired on.

“Oh, so that’s it,” Illumi said in understanding, as if just recognizing you, “Well, what do you want?”

“Y-yeah,” you stuttered, trying to organize yourself to explain properly, “See, my father was… Really,  _really_  terrible. I don’t know who hired a hit on him but… But he definitely deserved it. I was there when -I saw you kill him. You looked different back then, but… Well, anyway, you saved me, so I wanted to thank you…”

Illumi’s expression didn’t change, his dark eyes fixed on you without any discernible emotion. The feeling of it filled you with apprehension, making your words trailing off awkwardly.

“If that’s true, I was only doing what I was being paid to do,” Illumi pointed out simply, “Your thanks is unnecessary.”

The blunt way he told you something that was so clearly obvious -even to you, an assassin not even close to his caliber- made your cheeks go red.

“No, I know that! But.. You inspired me to become an assassin, too. When I saw you I thought… I thought you were really cool, and so I wanted to train hard until one day I could be good enough to meet you and…” you gestured helplessly, your shoulders slumping somewhat at his lack of reaction.

“You trained as an assassin to meet me?” Illumi asked doubtfully.

“I did!” you agreed quickly, before realizing you probably sounded a little creepy. Stifling a wince, you moved forward, trying to keep calm, “Sort of, I mean… And this job, um, I was wondering if we could maybe… Work together?” Illumi didn’t react in any way, so you pushed on, “I’ll do anything you say,” you vowed, eyes wide and serious as they met his, “And I promise I won’t be annoying, in fact I won’t even try to talk unless you do! So… Can we?”

Five seconds or five hundred years could have passed in that moment and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, anxiety clenching your heart painfully as you waited in an endless cycle of time for his rejection. 

Instead, you heard the most wonderful word in the entire world, possibly the universe, spoken with a casual shrug,

“Okay.”


	36. Wholesome Hisoka

Coat on, a scarf wrapped around your neck cozily and your keys and wallet tucked safely in your pocket, you were ready to head to the store. As often happened when you finished a job, you’d been too busy to keep up with shopping and as such had no food left. Plus, you had an influx of cash.

Although you’d braced yourself for the chill of the cold December air, you were instead confronted with an entirely different sort of intrusion upon opening your door.

Hand raised up to knock, hair dyed a bright shade of fiery red to match his red clothes, Hisoka stood on the other side of your door.

“Going out?” he asked, getting over his surprise within seconds as his amber eyes dropped to scan you in a way that somehow managed to make you feel exposed despite all your layers.

“Why are you here?” you asked in a prolonged moment of shock, speaking the first surprised words to pop into your head. It hit you a second later that it sounded rude to ask that so bluntly, but he didn’t seem fazed.

“I was in the area,” Hisoka replied cryptically. You nodded slowly, as if that made sense.

“I… Yeah, I’m going out. To the store,” you finally answered his first question, holding up your keys as if in explanation. Biting the bullet of what you might be unleashing on the world, you asked, “Wanna come?”

Hisoka blinked.

“To the store?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, ah.. You don’t have to,” you backtracked nervously, “If you want, you could just stay here, or…” You frowned.

“I’ll go,” he said, saving you from sweating over it too much. You let out a breath.

“Do you want a.. A jacket or something?” you asked, nodding to his bare arms. Wasn’t he cold?

“I’m fine… Unless you’ll offer to warm me up yourself,” Hisoka responded with a smile. 

Taking that as a no, you brushed past him to close and lock your door.

He said nothing on the way to your car, so neither did you. Doing something so domestic with Hisoka felt odd. For the most part, his visits were mostly organized around keeping him entertained. Like a vacation.

So this, the image of Hisoka, a famed criminal, casually getting into your passenger seat, was strange. More so than any other relatively normal thing you’d seen from him. The fact that he was a bright red figure amidst the cold gray landscape of your neighborhood didn’t help normalize it, either.

The silence continued as you began the short drive to the store, Hisoka was messing with the radio almost like a kid, switching stations aimlessly. You didn’t bother to ask him to buckle up.

“So… What have you been doing since…” you trailed off, thinking. It’d been awhile since you’d last seen him, since fall, maybe?

Time really did fly.

“I could tell you, but then I  _might_  have to kill you,” Hisoka replied playfully, his smile clear even in your periphery. 

You frowned, wondering how serious he actually was. 

“Might?” 

“I could try  _other methods_  of making you forget. After all, it’d be a shame to kill you so soon after arriving,” he answered sweetly. 

Well, it’d been your mistake to assume he’d talk about the past in any capacity to begin with.

“I guess I won’t ask,” you muttered, shaking your head.

Hisoka laughed, returning to fiddling with the radio. Maybe he’d been messing with you, after all.

Considering the hour, the store was blessedly uncrowded. You weren’t sure if, in good faith, you could take Hisoka into a busy store. 

The cold air slapped you upon getting out of the car despite the layers you’d donned, making you question even further how Hisoka could stand to be wearing what amounted to little more than a tank top. He didn’t even wear any sort of boots or socks, something like slippers on his feet.

At least he wasn’t wearing his heels. As it was, he was drawing an uncomfortable amount of eyes from the people taking their groceries to their cars. Even if his appearance wasn’t that of an infamously feared criminal to the normal person, he still looked strange. Like some sort of off duty performer.

It was a relief to enter the store, and the comfort of the warmer air within. The place was in full bloom for the holiday season, with inflatable gaudy displays of Santa and candy sales boasted on each aisle. Some terrible remix of a holiday classic was crackling through the speakers.

“I don’t need to get much so-” you said, grabbing a basket and pulling out your list, “-Just stick by me and…”

You looked up and blinked, almost surprised. Almost.

Five seconds in, and Hisoka was already gone. 

Letting out a heavy sigh, you followed your instinct towards the bright and loud Holiday displays. The commercial vomit of festivity, painted up in red and green and smelling of faux pine, did have a sort of draw to your inner child, like or not.  

Unfortunately, Hisoka was nowhere to be found. You frowned, wondering where else he might have been tempted to go. 

As if responding to your thoughts, you heard him call your name down one of the aisles. Relieved, you hurried that way, only to be confronted with more emptiness. Well, there was a lineup of creepy elf puppets and assorted decor, but no red magician to be found.

Hisoka was playing with you. Of course.

You sighed, turning around. You’d at least get the rest of your shopping done before dealing with his antics.

Except, you turned straight into a body. Warm and  _very_  solid, the surprise caused you to stumble backwards. If Hisoka hadn’t caught you, you’d have fallen.Your plastic basket wasn’t so lucky, slipping off your arm and clattering to the floor with an obnoxiously loud noise.

Before you could glare and tell him off, his lips were on yours. Kissing you.

You liked to believe yourself to be a strong person. Certainly one who could take care of themselves. It was a good thought, but the proof to the contrary was damning. 

For all that you should have rejected being drawn into a kiss not only in public, but one given as a distraction from getting annoyed at being played with, you melted against Hisoka without any real complaint.

In your defense, it’d been awhile, and he was addictively warm, his scent nearly intoxicating. Hisoka kissed you with an abnormal gentleness, his lips soft against yours and fingers curling sweetly beneath your chin.

It was over too soon, leaving you blushing and perhaps more affected that was appropriate for something relatively chaste by his standards.

Taking advantage of the state he’d left you in, Hisoka smiled. It was an incredibly innocent seeming grin, one long finger pointing upwards to where a display arched over the both of you.

“Look, I found some mistletoe.” 


	37. Yandere Pariston Hill + Lies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These chapter titles are rough lmaooo

 

You fell into bed without bothering to do anymore than take off your dress. Going out with Pariston was exhausting. It was impossible to know what might set him off, or what expectations he had for your behavior at any given moment. Sometimes the stress of it all made you wish not to leave at all, although you imagined that was apart of why he made it so hard.

Either way, you were glad to be back, even if it was to his bed, because at least you could relax. Although you heard Pariston moving around in the dark room, you kept your eyes closed, hoping maybe he’d let you sleep without disturbing you.

You weren’t so fortunate.

“You did well tonight,” Pariston praised you in a sugar sweet tone, joining you on the bed with his suit jacket abandoned somewhere and tie loosened. His eyes and smile somehow managed to catch a sparkle even in the low light as he continued, voice syrupy, “Isn’t it easier when you behave for me? Maybe I should reward you…”

Your breath caught, tensing under the heavy feeling of Pariston’s gaze as he laid beside you, propped up on one arm. Close enough that you could smell the warm and spicy scent of his expensive cologne.

If you were honest, you could admit how much the promise of a reward affected you. You’d admit how good it felt when he ran his fingers down your neck to your chest, an electric feeling against your skin. Pariston knew your body better than anyone else, and, to your utter shame, his praise made you shiver.

But you weren’t honest, so it was for those reasons that you had to reject him. Otherwise you’d have to take responsibility for your desire for a man who you were pretty sure you hated, a man who kept you at his side against your will. You would have to accept that your body responded to his touch with the shamelessness of the slut he occasionally accused you of being.

A grunt of dissent was the most eloquent argument you could offer as you began to roll away, turning your face from him. The previously gentle fingers became hard, pushing you back down into the bed beside him.

Pariston clicked his tongue, not a sound of upset, but something playful. Despite that casual sound, the small act of violence sent your heart racing.

Like the liar you were, you refused to acknowledge that it wasn’t only fear that pounded in your chest, but excitement. Denying Pariston came with the expectation of being pursued, a fact of which you were well aware. Was that why you did it? That thought sat like acid in your stomach.

“Perhaps I spoke too soon,” Pariston remarked with a short laugh, then a low sigh, “Ah, that’s what makes you my favorite. Any intelligent person would have better sense than to continue such a pointless fight, but not you.”

There was a saccharine fondness in Pariston’s voice that only heightened the insult to the implication of your stupidity. Combined with his low tone, it made your insides twist nervously. Still, you couldn’t entirely deny the thrill it sent through you, making you rub your thighs together in a way you hoped he didn’t notice.

“No… You’re special. I wonder, is it stubbornness that makes you continue to struggle against what you truly want?” Pariston asked, almost absently tracing loose patterns over your skin with his fingers, “Or, could it be that after all this time, you’re still too proud to admit defeat?” He seemed pleased with that idea.

You squirmed, stifling your reaction to both his touch and words. That was what he wanted, after all, so you kept your face as composed and neutral as possible.

“It’s because I don’t want-” you exhaled sharply, biting off your words as Pariston’s hand trailed further down. The feeling of his nails grazing across your fluttering stomach made you shutter.

“Lying?” Pariston questioned, feigning surprise. Soft fingers ventured lower, pulling a choked moan from your mouth when they brushed over your clothed sex, seeking the absolute evidence of your dishonesty. “That’s no good,” he admonished, “If you’re going to lie, at least make it believable.”

Then he sighed, a sound of faux regret.

“I wanted to reward you for good behavior, but maybe you need a lesson in honesty, instead.”


	38. Illumi Zoldyck + Oral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two that nobody asked for to "Impregnation Kink"  
> I love Illumi. Yikes.

It wasn’t that you necessarily disagreed with his intended result, but you couldn’t help but feel some sort of shock when Illumi came on to you. You were still recovering from the night before, how could he possibly expect more?

 

Sometimes you forgot the man you married was very likely not human, but the least he could do was let you breathe a bit after putting you through all that.

 

“I can’t,” you told him, pushing off his hands, “I’m still way too sore. “

 

To imagine him doing _that_ again so soon was intimidating in a way nothing in your entire career as an assassin ever had been.

 

“Sore?” Illumi asked curiously, pausing in his attempt to pull at your clothes. You frowned, groaning at hearing that question. Of course he wouldn’t understand.

 

“It’s like… like when you train too hard. It hurts,” you explained, a hand dropping suggestively to your pelvis, hoping he’d get it. Then again, maybe training was a bad example, Illumi had a nasty habit of pushing you too hard there, too.

 

He stared at you, not responding. Then his stoic expression became one of minor irritation and he sighed, using your momentary distraction to slide your underwear to your knees.

 

“Illumi!” you protested, wiggling away from him awkwardly and attempting to reclaim some modesty. Even that hurt a little bit, making you less than effective in actually stopping him from getting them off.

 

Illumi brushed his dark hair behind his shoulder, meeting your eyes with another impatient sigh.

 

“It’s a problem if you’re in pain. I’ll help you,” he explained reasonably, hand raised in offering. At your continued look of confusion, he pulled you by the ankles towards him, pushing open your thighs so he could settle between them.

 

“Wait, you’re-” you exclaimed in surprise, eyes widening in some mixture of surprise and budding lust. The lust was as surprising as his actions, considering you’d been sure you’d never be able to feel it again.

 

“Lay down,” Illumi interrupted you briskly, pushing your thighs even wider. “Keep them open,” he ordered, as if not noticing that the overworked muscles were already trembling.

 

“Illumi, that’s imposs-.” His eyes rose to yours, dark and intense, making you swallow your complaints and fall slowly down to the bed like he told you. At the very least it eased some of the trembling of your core muscles.

 

It occured to you how unfair it was that he’d treat you like a scolded trainee when it was his fault in the first place that you were so sore, but then Illumi’s cool fingers moved to expose you and his head dropped between your legs, his tongue dragging slowly across the sensitive flesh.

 

It took just about every bit of control you had to not clamp your thighs on his head at the overwhelming feeling of his mouth on your already overly sensitized clit. The whine you couldn’t stifle sounded closer to one of pain rather than pleasure, but the muttered encouragement that you gave was pretty telling.

 

To avoid letting your legs close, as well as stop yourself from tugging on the appealing lead of Illumi’s silky black hair and surely earning his ire, you dug your fingers into the trembling muscles of your thighs to hold them open.

 

There was something awfully filthy about the image of you holding yourself spread open for Illumi to eat you out. Made worse because of how intimately the sensation flirted with some variety of agony. Each pass and swirl of his tongue on your over-sensitive clit was almost too much, the straining and aching of your muscles burning as hot as the build of pleasure in your core.

 

Earlier, you’d been sure you couldn’t come again. It turned out that you were wrong. Terribly, naively wrong. Not that Illumi intended to get you there with pleasure alone, because there was no way he could possibly be unaware of the equal amounts of suffering he was inflicting, but Illumi knew even more honestly than you did how much allure pain had for you.

 

The evidence was gravely clear in the torrent of words you mindlessly muttered among the endless cries and moans you couldn’t keep down. Asking Illumi to stop, to slow down, to keep going, to speed up, begging, begging, pleading as if for your life with the distressingly pleasurable feeling of release coiling up behind the places his tongue tortured you.

 

When Illumi worked a long finger into you, stars of actual and genuine agony burst behind your eyes, but the obscenely loud cry that filled the room was pitched high with a reckless carnality. How could you derive such bliss from the terrible feeling? How could you possibly have the energy to rock into it, to press yourself closer to his mouth in search of even more?

 

“Illumi-” you whined between your teeth, abandoning your galant effort of keeping your thighs opened for him to grasp at the silky tendrils of his dark hair.

 

Illumi made a noise of clear unhappiness, but your unappreciated actions had a different sort of consequence. He sped up.

 

Each small movement of the finger inside of you made your entire body jerk, Illumi’s tongue moving even faster in racing you towards an orgasm that would undoubtedly come from the pain of over-sensitivity, yet rushed up on you without restraint. You could feel it so clearly, so terribly. It eased the agony, or at least transformed that feeling into something bright. Something wonderful.

 

“Illumi please… _I can’t_ -”

 

He hummed in something your hysteric mind registered as encouragement, and you _screamed_.

 

If it weren’t his fault to begin with, you’d have felt bad for the way your thighs closed on Illumi’s head as you came. As it was, coherent thought was pretty much lost on you, your mind emptied of everything but pure sensation as that elastic snap spread the unique and intoxicating cocktail of pain and pleasure through your body.

 

Vaguely, vaguely, you could acknowledge that there was a torrential stream of tears from the eyes you’d squeezed shut, that your body was shaking -nearly vibrating-  as your muscles tensed and strained and protested to the force of unwilling bliss, that your cries had reached a point of utter nonsense.

 

Release hit you horribly hard, breaking quickly and fading even faster without the strength to sustain itself in your exhausted mind and body.

 

Illumi didn’t push it this time, pulling away quickly. The slick slide of his finger from inside of you pulled one last helpless sob from the mess you’d been reduced to. Your body felt rubbery and limp, phantom shocks of pain and pleasure continuing to attack your tortured sex, each involuntary twitch bringing another wave of discomfort.

 

Overwhelmed and feeling something that went beyond simple over-stimulation or sanity, you threw your arms over your red face, unable to close your legs for the fear of the pain it would cause.

 

“Are you okay?” Illumi asked lightly, casually. In any other situation, you might have found his lack of situational awareness comical, but your shorted-out brain didn’t have the capacity for such things.

 

“Hm, this is no good, you’re even worse now...” he mused. After a moment, you heard him sigh, “I guess I’ll have to wait.”


	39. Father Chrollo Lucilfer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon wanted something about confessing sins to Father Chrollo. I wrote it as a part 2 to Possessive Chrollo + Breakup  
> Welcome to hell

“This is… This is wrong,” you protested uncertainly, doing nothing to stop Chrollo or move away despite your words. If it was wrong, then why did you stay? He didn’t hold you to the Altar, he hadn’t dragged you to the church. He wasn’t even touching you, standing a foot or so behind, facing the rows and rows of empty pews.

Empty and dark. The church was closed, but Chrollo had no issue in getting the two of you in. It had to have been more difficult since he’d chosen such a flashy and grand place of worship, but you couldn’t deny the choice was effective. Even in the dim light provided only by a dozen candles and blueish filtered moonlight streaming through the stained glass above, you could tell the architecture was grand and beautiful. Leagues above the simple church you’d attended as a child, a sweeping and grand interior styled after roman cathedrals.

“Where else would be an appropriate location to confess your sins?” Chrollo asked reasonably, brushing your hair away from your neck. You swallowed hard, chest fluttering with nervous breath. “Don’t you want to be forgiven?” His voice was quiet and intimately close behind you, the warm breath that caressed the shell of your ear the only real touch he’d offered so far.

Forgiven. How could he even ask you that? How could he make it sound so tantalizing when you knew it was nothing more than another of his temptingly lovely lies?

Chrollo might have been the blasphemous priest, but you were the foolish faithful. The true sinner, the one who followed his lies even knowing it would be your damnation. With a shaky sigh, your eyes fluttered shut with an aching acceptance at the feeling of his lips gently brushing across the sensitive skin on your neck. You didn’t even flinch at the touch of his hands lightly ghosting down your arms, raising chills in their wake.  

“No God would forgive me, now,” you sighed quietly, there was no blame in your voice, not anymore. You used to despise Chrollo, starting with that night when you’d confronted him with the truth, and the days after. You had hated him truly for twisting the purity of your love into the chains that kept you his hostage.

But blame couldn’t change that you were complicit, that you had not fallen from grace as an innocent. Rather, you had jumped from Eden and ripped off your wings to make it easier for the Devil to hold you in the sanctuary of his embrace.

The Devil laughed, his face pressed to the juncture of your neck and shoulder, the rumble of the sound vibrating against your back and making you shutter.

“It’s not the forgiveness of a faceless God you want, is it?” he asked lowly, “Confess your sins to me, and I will give you absolution.”

Absolution. You drew in a gasp that sounded an awful lot like the beginning of a sob, a hotness stinging behind your eyes.

“How long has it been since your last confession?” Chrollo asked, mercilessly gentle and sweet.

A question, but not really a choice. Your answer was waiting on your tongue long before your mind could stop you.

“Not since… Not since I was in high school, at least,” you responded, your voice breathless and trembling, eyes opening to the empty church, to the sole audience of this sacrilege. “F-forgive me,” you muttered. To Chrollo, to God, or to the church itself, you didn’t know.

“For what?” he asked. Holding you, steadying you even as you shook, as your breath hiccuped and stuttered.

“My sin, my…” you couldn’t say it.

“Confess,” Chrollo prompted, unendingly tender, pressing a kiss to your shoulder.  

“I love you,” you whispered, your eyes closing again. You hadn’t spoken those words since you found out the truth. To admit it was to admit your sin. To confess. “You’re…”  _A murderer? A criminal? A liar? A terrifyingly possessive captor?_  “I shouldn’t love you, but I…”

Hearing yourself speak those words, after all the time they’d been caustically swirling in your head, felt almost like relief.

“I forgive you,” Chrollo replied.

“No,” you protested, tears welling up finally behind closed eyes, “It’s wrong, it’s…”

“Shall I offer you a punishment as penance for your wickedness?” Chrollo asked with the tender tone of some benevolent deity, his hands sliding down to take your hands in his. Warm hands. He radiated such true, safe warmth. 

“Penance…” you repeated quietly, the word only half remembered in this context.

“Give yourself to me,” Chrollo said lowly. Terrible and tempting words, raising chills down your neck. “I love you, so give yourself to me. Let me save you.”

To give in was to wash yourself of sin with the ignorant bliss of a blind believer, to acknowledge the Devil’s power and allow that to clean you. God knew you should have known better. You  _did_  know better.

But, Chrollo was right. It wasn’t some faceless God who would make you whole. 

So you spoke. In a cracked voice at the altar of a God you were denouncing, eyes wet with tears, you accepted a false god’s absolution.

“I love you.”


	40. Chrollo Lucilfer + Spanking/Teasing

You swayed unsteadily, still tipsy from the drinks you’d had even after the trip home. Chrollo came up behind you to help you undo the zipper of your dress you’d been struggling with, his hands warm and steady. Familiar. You were so glad he was back.

“Do you really think you’d get away with how you were acting tonight?” he asked conversationally as he pulled the zipper down. You peeked over your shoulder with a cheeky smile, letting your dress fall to your feet with a wiggle.

“It’s not my fault I’m a flirty drunk, some  _handsome stranger_  kept buying me drinks,” you replied playfully, uncharacteristically bold in your tipsy state. Besides, he always teased you. It was only fair.

Perhaps your sober mind would be embarrassed that you’d acted so forward while in a public setting, and at the possibility that you’d actually upset him with your various filthy mutterings, but now it only made you giggle childishly. Chrollo met your eyes without any particular expression, past reacting to your antics now that he was used to them.

You rolled your eyes with an exaggerated huff, looking away from him to fall on the bed and get your heels off.

“What are you gonna do if I don’t apologize, spank me?” you asked with overly flirtatious sarcasm, letting one shoe fall the floor and undoing the other.

“Yes,” Chrollo replied seriously, without hesitation. You froze, your remaining shoe landing on the floor with a comically timed beat. It didn’t make you laugh, however, because his quick response shorted out your brain for a second.

Was he serious? Or was he playing, getting revenge for your clumsy dirty whispering at the bar?

“Punishment is the solution to misbehavior. How else will you take responsibility for what you’ve done?” Chrollo continued with a slight, knowing smile, coming to sit beside you on the edge of the bed, mostly undressed. Beautiful. Warm.

You looked upwards into his eyes, but his expression gave you no clues to what he was thinking. Your heart thumped unhelpfully, a hot feeling that had nothing to do with liquor spreading through your limbs. You’d gotten cocky through the night, thinking you had the upper hand with your shamelessness.

Now he’d undone all of that without even having to try.

Drawing in an unsteady breath, you sat up and broke eye contact, shaking your head with a nervous laugh.

“I mean… I guess I’m a little sorry, I didn’t really mean to upset you,” you said. The apology was obviously false, and a bit breathless with a sudden rush of excitement.

“I don’t believe you,” Chrollo replied, deadpan, “Come here,” he ordered, effortlessly demanding. You swallowed hard at that sound, stomach exploding in a rush of hot butterflies. A moment passed where you didn’t respond, too flustered to think of any words, and he spoke again, using a softer tone, “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

You recognized that question as an out, a way for you to refuse. Even while killing you with lust, Chrollo was sweet. That only made you want him more.

Giving in was an inevitability, but you couldn’t simply admit defeat and crawl onto his lap. Not yet.

“I think you’re overreacting a little bit, did I really embarrass you that much?” you teased with a tone of forced bravado as you turned to face him. He smiled at your silently voiced agreement. Smug.

“Embarrass?” Chrollo asked, speaking as if that word was a joke, “I might be more capable of controlling myself than you, but I’m still a man,” he said, his voice warm and oddly lighthearted considering his previous serious attitude. You knew enough about Chrollo to know that this inflection was more dangerous. “I considered taking you in the bar’s bathroom as a reminder of that, and again during the cab ride home, but if I gave in and ‘ _fucked you until you screamed_ ’,” he quoted your words from the bar with a smirk, the filthy phrase making your breath catch when spoken in his melodic voice, “I’m afraid that you won’t learn anything.”

You knew your cheeks were red, skin flushed with a heat that burned all the way down into the very core of your body. You couldn’t even be sure if you felt the effects of alcohol anymore, of if you were simply drunk on the thrill of Chrollo’s words.

“There’s no point in acting shy now. Come,” he ordered, “Do you need help?” he asked, further amusement in his voice. You looked up to meet his dancing gray eyes with your wide ones.

“I don’t!” you responded defensively, unsure if you could handle that particular humiliation. So, averting your eyes, you crawled to him and positioned yourself over his lap at the edge of your bed as gracefully as you could manage. Chrollo positioned you, contorting your back into a more suggestive arch, and pulled off your panties. Baring you to him.

You wanted this so badly, but that didn’t remove any of the embarrassment you felt under his gaze. It didn’t help that you couldn’t see his expression, or what he was doing.

“Are you scared?” Chrollo asked, smoothing a hand down your ass and thighs, making you shiver.

“A… A little,” you admitted breathlessly. You couldn’t tell if it was nerves or excitement, or if the two one in the same at this point.

“Then maybe next time you’ll think twice before playing with fire,” Chrollo told you pitilessly, his hand landing against your bare skin with a loud smack. It was more jolting than anything, although there was an unmistakable rush of pain, of pleasure. He rubbed the spot gently, sending chills across your body. “Tell me again the things you whispered at the bar,” he requested.

“I can’t remember,” you replied breathily, your mind blank and heart racing as you waited anxiously for the next strike. Chrollo didn’t make you wait long, spanking you again after letting out a disappointed sigh. It was a bit harder, aimed the ultra sensitive spot at the very tops of your thighs and making you cry out, your body tensing and thighs rubbing together in seek of pleasurable friction.

“Try,” he ordered. You nodded vehemently, your face pressed into the bed as you tried to recall anything you’d told him at the bar.

It was useless. All you could think about was his hand, the feeling of the way he rubbed soft circles against your stinging skin, the heat and the suspense of waiting for more.

“Chrollo, I can’t,” you said, practically whined.

Without warning this time, his palm landed, his other arm holding you from squirming away.

“I was surprised to hear you say such filthy things,” Chrollo said with another loud slap, “You don’t remember any of it?” another, the sound of his palm hitting you skin so violent in comparison with his even tone, “How, whenever I’m gone you finger yourself thinking of me,”  _smack_ , “That you play my voicemails while touching yourself because it’s the only way you can get satisfaction,”  _smack_ , “That you love it when I hurt you,” his hand slapped harder after those words, making you scream into the muffling bunch of blanket held to your face, “Or when I touch you.”

This time his hand landed, but didn’t raise back up, rubbing gently on your red hot skin before sliding down, forcing your legs to open enough for his fingers to delve into your dripping sex. The barest touch of his fingers made you writhe, trying to move to get more of that feeling,  _anything_  more.

“ _Please Chrollo_ ,” you begged desperately, crying and breathless and needy, “I really am sorry… I’ll do anything you want, so  _please_  make me come.”

His fingers moved down, the sound of your wetness making a strong argument for how badly you wanted him, before finding your swollen clit. 

“Anything?” Chrollo asked, a smile in his voice. You didn’t care.

“Yes! Yes, anything, I promise!” you replied, trying to push yourself against his fingers. When he pulled away, you couldn’t help but make a sound between a whine and a sob. 

Then you were on your back, the pain of your stinging ass and thighs hitting the bedspread making you cry out. Chrollo sat above you, clearly affected by lust with that attractive pink on his cheeks and excited bright eyes, but still in absolute control. Always, always in control.

“The problem with playing with fire,” he said wiping your tears sweetly, “Is that you get burned.”


	41. Pariston Hill + First Love

“Pariston?” you asked, speaking at full volume. You poked his sleeping form, but his breathing remained even, his expression smooth under the influence of the sleeping pills you’d managed to painstakingly slip into his drink earlier that night. While drafting this particular scheme, you’d told yourself that drugging him would be the hardest part.

That had been naive, you now realized, lying to yourself just as you always did to hide from your true feelings. Getting away with fooling Pariston was something you’d never managed to accomplish before tonight, and it was still the easiest part of this whole awful affair.

Because, as you knelt on the floor at his bedside, shaking and clammy with cold sweat, it was almost impossible to the see the man you hated in the guileless and soft expression he wore while asleep. Unconsciousness gave Pariston a boyish look, his features surrounded by a golden halo of messy hair spread out on the pillow beneath him. Almost innocent, not at all like the cruel man you knew. Seeing him like this filled your chest with a sickened guilt.

This was the face of the man you loved.

Loved. That word had only occurred to you as you assembled the syringe after ensuring he was fast asleep, hitting you hard enough that you doubled over with a real and physical pain. How could you love him? How had you lied to yourself for so long that you never realized how far you’d fallen?

The fact that you wanted to back out now, after you’d gotten so far, was reason enough for why you absolutely had to go through with it. With killing him. If you were finally going to be honest, shed your lies and accept responsibility for all that had happened to you, then it would be unforgivable to not do something to help yourself. A coward was no better than a liar.

Closing your eyes to the dreadful image of his soft face, you tried to picture Pariston’s heartless grin, his empty eyes sparkling with sadistic delight whenever he did something particularly terrible to you. His voice, which always hurt you just as much as his actions ever had. With some effort, you could imagine the man you hated so much, but when you opened your eyes, it was replaced with the other side of him. Love. Hate.

Why was the line so thin? A tightrope of extremes, both stabbing you with a unique sensation of agony.

You tried to remember all of the times you’d wanted to kill him, but were unable to, tried to recall all of the caustic and terrible feelings you’d felt as he tortured and abused you, the emotions that would lend you strength. But thinking of him invited thoughts of all the sweet things he’d done, the consideration and attentiveness that nobody else had ever shown for you. The jokes and the smiles and the adoration he’d spoiled you with.

Had Pariston broken you down into this weak and crying creature, holding a syringe of poison in a sweaty fist and cowering at the thought of killing a man who most definitely deserved it, or were you always so pathetic?

You let out a shuddering breath, blinking rapidly to clear your eyes. That particular truth no longer mattered. This was what you were here, now.

It would be easy. All you had to do was inject the poison into his neck. He couldn’t put up a fight after downing all those sedatives. You wouldn’t have to look him in the eyes. Poison was perfect for a cowardly assassin. Perfect for a rat.

Once it was done, you could deal with the fallout. With the guilt and disgust and fear, any of it, all of it. It was what you deserved, wasn’t it? Weakness had a price in the world you’d chosen for yourself.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered in a choked voice into the dark. He didn’t respond, although you half expected him to. Was there disappointment in your chest when he didn’t, or were you just so used to Pariston playing nasty tricks that you subconsciously believed it would happen?

It didn’t matter. You raised the syringe with a forcefully steadied hand, pressing the needle to his neck, pushing slowly.

Focus was your weakness, then, because if you hadn’t been concentrating so hard you might have heard the change in his breathing. The minute tension of his muscles before Pariston’s hand grabbed yours, right before the needle broke skin.

Out of shock, out of fear, you screamed. With a painfully jerky movement, your body jerked away from him, but the grip holding your hand was unbreakable, squeezing your hand around the plastic syringe and keeping you by the bedside. Pariston’s smile shined in the dim light slanting in from the windows as he sat up.

“I didn’t think you’d be able to do it,” he said joyfully. His voice was… trembling. With emotion? You felt as if your heart was going to pound right out of your chest in fear, in distress.

Even though it threatened to dislocate your shoulder, even as you felt your arm beginning to give out with the amount of force used, you pulled to free your hand from his. To get away. A mistake, it seemed, because when Pariston released you, it sent you flying back. Trying to keep yourself upright was useless, your body simply sprawled like a rag doll with the momentum you’d built up.

The syringe clattered to the floor, out of reach. Useless.

“How?” you asked as you got your arms beneath yourself, unable to form a full question as surreal despair overcame your mind. Despair, and relief. Pariston was going to kill you, you had failed. It was over. Finally, finally over.

He stood up, showing none of the intoxicated sluggishness he’d had before falling asleep. Had he been pretending the whole time? You could have laughed in awe of his skill if you could draw the breath to do so.

“You’re still too easy to read,” Pariston told you, “Even so, this is a surprise… I thought you were going to try to run again, but this-”

He laughed, coming towards you. The sound made your insides twist, body flooding with frightened adrenaline. You wanted to run, but found yourself frozen as he lowered himself in front of you, putting his eyes at your level.

“You really were going to kill me,” Pariston said, that strange emotional tremor returning to his voice. As if he was touched by your actions. “I worried that you were becoming dull, you know. But that was just an act, wasn’t it? You’ve grown so much…” there was a fervor in the way he spoke that you hadn’t heard before, something that disgusted you. Something that you responded to no matter how scared you were. “I wondered, before, but now-” Pariston continued, falling into a low tone that made your spine tingle, “The way I feel, the way you make me feel… This is love, isn’t it.”

“I hate you,” you whispered in disgust, knowing that the hate you felt was almost entirely directed at your heart’s unsteady response to those words. There was no way. A man like Pariston couldn’t love. He didn’t love you.

But, you had thought you couldn’t love him, either.

“It’s wonderful…” he cooed, “I’ve never felt like this before, I knew you were special.”

You didn’t fight when Pariston pulled you into him, tangling his hand into your hair to angle your head up upwards so his lips could seek yours. You should have struggled, but your body didn’t listen. Instead, your hands, shaking and clammy, twisted in his shirt, held onto him as if he were an anchor to steady you as something in your mind well and truly broke. 

His kiss tasted of the salt of your tears, of the drugged wine you’d given him earlier. It was far more sloppy than the way Pariston usually kissed you, but thick with the passion of what he called love, of your despair and hated adoration. You knew you were kissing back, but you couldn’t help but give in to the unavoidable anguish of his desire, relent to both Pariston and to yourself, the things you’d kept suppressed.

It hurt, hurt more than anything you’d ever felt. 

Pariston pulled away, leaving you breathless and shaking, needily clinging to him even as your mind screamed at you to push him away. His breathing was uneven too. Like you were lovers, true lovers.

“I’ll find a way to kill you,” you promised, the vow lacking all bite at your uncertainty of even desiring his death anymore. At least you could say you tried, and wasn’t that all your objections had ever been? 

Pariston laughed, petting your hair gently.

“Oh, you really are fun,” he sighed lowly, intimately, “It’s like you were made to be mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rat poison. I'm so fucking funny


	42. Main Four + Petting Their Hair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous Asked: I cant remember if I asked this already but could you write something for the main four asking their s/o to pet/play with their hair, like not their s/o randomly doing it but like they just kind of curling up in their lap and getting sleepy

**Kurapika~**

 

You considered telling Kurapika that he was pushing himself too hard, that it wasn’t healthy for him to keep going until his body and mind simply gave out, but you knew it wouldn’t do any good. Instead, when his head fell into your lap, his tense body collapsing sideways on the couch, you only allowed your heart to ache a bit. To desperately wish the world could be a better place for the broken boy in your lap.

“Maybe tomorrow you could spend the day in, it’s good for you to get some rest now and then,” you told him. Kurapika hummed.

“Maybe,” he replied tiredly, noncommittally. A lie. You both knew he wouldn’t stay in bed unless he was physically unable to get up.

Slowly, so as to not startle him, you let your hand run over the soft texture of his blond hair, which glinted softly in the lamp light. The color reminded you of the rippling waves of wheat you’d seen sway in the countryside, a golden ocean dyed by the warm skies of the setting sun. He was warm, too, although you worried it was more from a developing fever than the natural heat of a body.

Sighing, you let your hand fall.

“You don’t have you stop,” Kurapika objected in a worn out voice.

“Huh?” you asked, looking down at him.

“I’d… I’d like it if you pet my hair. It feels nice,” he responded.

“Oh… Of course,” you said softly, surprised at the request, but happy to comply.

You started gently, running your fingers through the thick golden strands and smoothing them out. Kurapika’s hair was getting long, but you didn’t mind it. Even when it was messy, especially when it was messy, you couldn’t help but love the way it looked.

As the sleepy and comfortable silence continued one, Kurapika slowly untensed on your lap, you could feel him relaxing -practically melting- into your touch. His breathing evened out, each pass of your hand soothing him a little bit more.

“Hey,” he said in a quiet voice. A sweet voice, almost childlike.

“Mmm?”

“Do you mind if I sleep for a bit? You can wake me up, later…”

“Of course I don’t mind,” you soothed gently, “Sleep, Kurapika, I’ll be right here,” you promised with an especially soft pass of your hand over his head, knowing that you absolutely would spend the night in this position if it meant he would get some rest.

“Thank you,” Kurapika sighed, already on the edge of unconsciousness.

“I love you,” you replied quietly, almost certain he wouldn’t hear you before he fell under the depths of sleep.

“I love you, too,” he mumbled nearly inaudibly, shocking you. The words didn’t seem to impact Kurapika the way they had you, as only seconds later you heard the telltale sounds of his deep, even breathing. You stayed sitting, stayed petting his hair with your heart filled with equal pain and adoration, wishing things could always be like this, but knowing that if you didn’t enjoy it now you’d never get to again.

 

* * *

 

**Gon~**

 

Gon was sleepy, you could easily tell that as the two of you sat on a picnic blanket together. He’d been away for awhile, off on some adventure, and it had obviously left him worn. Despite that, he’d excitedly agreed to go out for a picnic lunch with you, sitting beneath the shade of your favorite large tree.

“Gon?” you asked, breaking him from a slight daze. He blinked at you, responding with an apologetic smile that made your heart swell. You really had missed him

“Sorry, was I zoning out again?” he asked, face scrunching sheepishly. You smiled.

“It’s okay. Would you like to lay down for a bit?”

Gon’s eyes widened, his hands waving in denial before he could even speak.

“No, no, I’m really okay, I promise,” he said quickly. Your eyes narrowed.

“It doesn’t matter what we do, you know. I just like being together with you,” you told him honestly, “Besides, if you’re tired, then you can’t have fun. Right?”

“Well, I guess that’s true,” he relented, looking down for a second. It gave you whiplash when his face suddenly brightened, his round eyes jumped up to yours, “Would you mind if I laid in your lap, then? I’m sure I’d get a lot of rest like that.”

Although Gon’s expression was the picture of innocence, you felt as if his word choice was a bit telling. Still, you couldn’t help but smile, motioning him over.

“Fine, fine, but you have to actually keep your eyes closed and try to sleep,” you told him as he came over, happily falling onto your lap and nuzzling his cheek into your thigh. Your hand settled onto his head, feeling his thick dark hair, petting it before letting your hand fall aside.

“Do that again,” Gon requested, his eyes closed as promised, although he was still smiling.

“Will it help you sleep?” you asked doubtfully. He nodded into your leg.

“Yep!”

Gon’s energetic tone wasn’t exactly convincing, but you gave in, running your fingers through his thick hair again. You’d never known anyone with hair as thick or rich, how his head wasn’t constantly overheating was a mystery to you. Still, it suited him. It felt nice between your fingers, too.

After a bit of silence, broken only by the ambient sounds of nature, you felt Gon relax. He let out a soft breath, nuzzling his cheek into your thigh with an almost unconscious sort of affection before relaxing entirely. Still, you continued petting his hair, enjoying the peace of the moment.

 

* * *

 

 

**Leorio~**

 

Leorio after a sixteen hour hospital shift was, as it turned out, barely human. Not that you blamed him, although you did worry. Especially when his solution involved alcohol. Lugging a six foot four, drunk, and exhausted man home turned out to be one of the hardest feats you’d ever undertaken, especially when you were one drink short of being a stumbling drunk, yourself.

When you finally got him home, Leorio happily collapsed on the bed while you got water for the both of you. The trip home had sobered you up a bit, but you couldn’t say the same for him. Maybe that was the exhaustion, though.

“We should have stayed longer, we were having a good time!” Leorio told you, slurring and smiling, his cheeks pink and glasses askew.

“ _We_ both have work tomorrow,” you said, rolling your eyes, “Here, drink up,” you held out a bottle of water to him. Instead of taking it, Leorio grabbed your hand, pulling you into the bed with a squeak of surprise.

“Hey-!” you stopped short in your angry response, unable to get up any amount of righteous anger at the way Leorio was hugging you, his head happily lolling into your chest and arms wrapped tight around your middle.

“I’m the doctor, shouldn’t I be taking care of you?” he asked, his words muffled by the way his face was pressed against you. You laughed at that. Leorio could barely take care of himself, you doubted he could even get up if he wanted to.

“You’ve played doctor long enough today. You’re off duty,” you told him, “You should lay down and sleep, Leorio.”

“I am,” he said, dozing already. You let your head fall back with a sigh, thinking that you should get up and undress the both of you, force him to drink the water bottle you knew had to be somewhere on the bed, and arrange the two of you into a position that wouldn’t leave his arm dead and your back sore.

Instead, you ran your hand over Leorio’s head, into his hair. He’d been pressed for time and not gelled it that morning, making it messy and loose. Cute, not that Leorio appreciated you telling him that.

He hummed, a deep and appreciative sound that felt funny against your chest, nudging his head against your hand wordlessly. You laughed softly, eyes closing and deciding that it was okay to stay like this. At least for now. You pushed your fingers into his hair softly, running your nails lightly over his scalp. Leorio hummed again, almost like a purr.

The easy motions of petting his hair, focusing more and more on the evening and deepening of his breath, on the warm and happy blanket of darkness over the two of you, lulled you into sleep, consequences be damned. At least for the night.

 

* * *

 

 

**Killua~**

 

To his credit, Killua waited to pass judgement until  _after_  the intro murder in the horror movie you’d rented.

“This is so lame,” he groaned as the main character’s arc began in all its campy mundane-ness, fresh off the heels of the exciting opening scene. You frowned at him.

“You said that you wouldn’t watch another ‘girly’ movie, and that action movies were unrealistic and dumb. I thought maybe a slasher could be fun,” you said, frustrated at how picky he could be. All you’d wanted was a cute movie night with your boyfriend, not to learn that he was actually some sort of horribly harsh critic.

Killua turned to you with a flat look.

“I won’t watch the rest if all of the characters are going to be such idiots, it’ll only piss me off,” he said bluntly, crossing his arms.

“Then what will you watch?” you asked. Killua thought for a second before twisting around, falling onto his back on the couch with his head landing in your lap, shadowed blue eyes fixed up at you.  

“I changed my mind. I don’t want to watch anything, not if they’re all this bad,” he said.

“You’re impossible,” you said, rolling your eyes.

“Yeah,” Killua admitted easily, “But you’re the one who has terrible taste in movies.”

“And boys, apparently,” you replied sardonically. Killua smiled.

“I’m tired, anyway. You can watch what you want,” he sighed.

“How gracious,” you sassed, “What are you gonna do, then?”

“Sleep,” he responded comfortably, closing his eyes.

“Like this?” you asked. 

“Yeah. All my pillows are in the bedroom. You’ll do.” Killua said. 

Truly, he was impossible.

“Fine,” you agreed, feigning annoyance with a fond smile he couldn’t see. Killua’s head was a comfortable and warm weight in your lap, and the way the light from the TV danced across his face and hair was far more interesting than the movie.

“You know I can feel you staring. It’s creepy,” Killua said, startling you slightly when his eyes popped open.

“Sorry,” you apologized quickly. Killua smirked, then heaved out a much put-upon sigh.

“Well… If you play with my hair a bit, I might forgive you,” he said, aloof tone softened slightly by the sweet request.

“For the bad movies, too?” you asked, running your fingers gently through the soft mess of white hair splayed across your lap. Killua’s eyes closed, but he remained smiling.

“Nah, you’ll still owe me for those.”


	43. Hisoka + From Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon wanted to get dicked down from behind by Clown Daddy 
> 
> As do I

Hisoka tasted like artificial cherry candy and bad ideas. The way he held you was violence itself, his touch dangerous and body burning. Kissing him felt more like some small scale brawl than an expression of intimacy. It was sloppy and excited, stealing your breath as you met his excitement with your own fire of desire. The dark air tasted like lust and blood, charged with the tension built up from an especially exciting fight. A victory.

You’d won in your arena fight, but that power was useless against Hisoka, your strength futile when he caught you in the darkened wings off the stage.

His brutal fist wrenched you away from the kiss by your hair, pulling a pained mewl from your swollen lips. Violent hands were the ones that flipped you around and pushed your torso roughly to the cold surface of the back stage counter.

It was rough and violent, almost even cruel, but would you really want it any other way?

“You did very well,” Hisoka praised you sweetly, “Mm, you’re growing so quickly… I can hardly stand to  _wait_.” To emphasize that point, he ground himself against you, distinctly hard despite the annoying layers of fabric between the two of you. The feeling made you groan, impatience becoming a cruel ache within you. It didn’t even matter that you knew he was talking about fighting, not fucking, because at this point those two things were one in the same.

“Hurry  _up,_ ” you ground out, uncaring of how needy you sounded. Hisoka chuckled quietly, his hand trailing down your back and leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake even through the material of your shirt. Then he pulled away, both hands circling around to your front to undo the button of your pants.

“Are you that desperate for me?” Hisoka asked in a thickly delighted voice, pushing down your pants and underwear in one go, “You don’t have to worry,” he cooed, making you moan loudly by running a finger between your slick folds, “I have no intentions of leaving you  _unsatisfied_. Not when you’ve already gotten yourself all worked up… Is it from the fight, or are you just that happy to see me?”

“A bit of both,” you answered honestly, breathlessly, arching your back in a shameless display to get more of that wonderful touch. Hisoka hummed, a pleased sound, joined by the exciting shuffling of fabric.

“I’m so  _glad_  I didn’t kill you,” he said, lining himself up. Your body tensed in excitement, in anticipation and lust.

“Shut up and  _fuck me_ ,” you replied with a sharp gasp, the plea opening into a cry of delighted pain when Hisoka finally pushed in. It hurt, especially with the way his nails dug into your hips, the unrelenting way he impatiently entered all at once rather than giving you time to adjust. It made your mind go blank, your body writhing and full.

“So crass…” Hisoka mused, leaning down as he experimentally rolled his hips against you. It made you moan, a pathetically lewd sound. “Shouldn’t you be more grateful that I’m willing to take care of you like this?”

“Yeah,” you gasped out, “You’re so.. So selfle-,” your words cut off with a louder cry as Hisoka straightened out, moving faster to set a rapid pace inside of you. On the counter on either side of you, your hands created helpless fists, tensing and flexing at the dependent feeling of being pinned and taken like this.

The area off of the arena stage didn’t have locks or doors. It was entirely possible that somebody could just stroll right through and see what the ‘proud victor’ was allowing the famed champion murderer Hisoka Morow do to her.

“Then again, maybe you serve my needs better this way,” Hisoka said, voice heady with arousal. The hand on your back moved up, tangling into your hair and pulling you up, forcing your back into a dramatic arch without letting up with his harsh pace. It hurt, but that pain was dizzyingly pleasurable, your most base of thoughts and desires losing track of which feelings was which. Not that it really mattered, not with Hisoka. “The way you moan for me… You’d think you like it when I hurt you,” he muttered in a sickly sweet humor, hot against the back of your neck.

Past words, you could only whimper.

“It’s wonderful…” he moaned. Then his hand left your hip, wrapping around your neck, squeezing until you couldn’t speak even if you were able to form the words. Hisoka spoke with a sadistically sugary humor, his words weighed with delight at your useless struggle, “ _Tell me_  if I’m being to rough, alright?” 


	44. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: Maybe if I branded you, other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.

“Chrollo?” you said softly, speaking with deference to the quiet of the dark street the two of you were walking down, peeking up at his contemplative face shyly, “Are you still angry?”

The question hurt to ask, but it was the only conclusion Chrollo’s behavior had brought you to. For most of the night, his eyes had been dark and his expression unreadable, staying silent no matter how you tried to prompt him to engage.

Hearing your words, Chrollo looked down at you, his expression softening a bit.

“I’m not angry,” he said, sighing after a moment and looking back forward, “I should have expected this, being gone so often… No,” Chrollo’s mouth turned down slightly, a pout in profile, “I knew this would happen. Rather, I didn’t consider how I would react.”

“React to what?” you asked, only more confused after his enigmatic explanation. It seemed he wasn’t done, however, continuing on almost as if speaking to himself.

“It’s only natural that others would covet something valuable, but to see them behave in such a blatant way… “ Chrollo sighed again, dark eyes turning back down to meet your puzzled expression. His lips quirked up at seeing it, a fond look that gave your heavy heart some hope, “Are they aware of your true value? Could they possibly appraise that with their crude comments and lecherous eyes?”

You blinked, caught between flattered and shocked.

“Chrollo….” you began hesitantly, “Are you… Jealous?” It sounded silly even to you.

“Jealous…” Chrollo repeated, as if tasting the word, “That’s not quite right… I don’t like the idea that they look at you without knowing to whom you belong. Precious things are usually tagged or marked in some way to denote ownership, but you…” he looked back down at you, thinking.

You froze under the gaze, your steps stopping and stomach twisting strangely. Chrollo stopped, too, turning with a questioning look.

“ _Ownership_?” you asked, trying to suspend your discomfort and remain calm as you met his eyes, which were obscured and darkened by the blanket of shadow that covered the places between street lamps. Chrollo made a small sound of surprise, as if your reaction was odd.

He paused, standing still for a moment and considering his words before taking a step to you. Close, but not touching. Not quite.

“I trust that you’re loyal, am I wrong in that?” Chrollo asked softly, his expression indecipherable in the dark. Your eyebrows furrowed, a lump forming in your throat as you were caught between reassuring him of your loyalty and disagreeing with those uncomfortably possessive words.

“No,” you finally relented, “But-”

“Will you prove that to me?” Chrollo asked, interrupting you neatly.

“Prove my loyalty?” you asked, voice raised with emotion. Chrollo’s warm hand rose, touching your cheek gently, comfortingly.

“If I branded you as mine,” he told you seriously, running his thumb across your face sweetly, “Other people wouldn’t be such a nuisance.”


	45. Yandere Illumi Anger Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a few thousand words into three different concepts before settling on this one, and then rewrote it three times... Kms

“Illumi, I’m so...” you began, trying to keep the fear in your voice to a minimum despite how scared you were, how awful you felt. Your mouth opened again, but you had nothing else to say. No excuses or explanations. To be dragged back home was hard, but to face him with your guilty heart now was harder. 

 

Dark eyes met yours, pitiless and empty. Illumi was mad, you could taste in the air of the room, a tense and heavy weight against you. 

 

“I warned you that there would be consequences if you tried to escape again,” he said calmly.

 

You didn’t understand for a second, mind scrambling for answers. It didn’t take long to piece it together, though. The needles in his hand, swirling with his unnerving Aura, were the ultimate culmination of his possessive desire to control you. 

 

“Illumi…” you whispered, eyes wide with horror as you backed up, his steps matching yours as he raised them to you.

 

“If you can prove to me that I can trust you to obey me on your own,” Illumi said, running the sharp tips of several Aura-filled needles up your neck, forcing you to raise your chin, to meet the bottomless void his dark eyes, “I’ll forgive you.”

 

Looking into Illumi’s eyes, you could see the very real threat in his words. His gaze held an emotion you’d never seen from him, excitement. He wasn’t bluffing, the horrifying menace in the Aura so close to your skin was proof of that. 

 

“If making you into a puppet is the only way to make you do as I say, I’ll do it. Either you’ll stay by my side out of your loyalty as my wife-” Illumi smiled, “-Or you’ll stay here because I make you.”

 

You didn’t move, barely daring to breath as you silently watched Illumi with the vain hope that his expression would return to the stoicism you knew so well. As you waited with ice in your stomach for him say that this was all a cruel lie. But no matter how much you wanted that, with all your heart, you knew this was the truth. This was your reality. The consequence of your actions.

 

Illumi knew as well as you did what you would do, that eerie grin he wore made it clear. Torture and isolation had been ineffective in making you compliant to his increasingly controlling and manipulative love, but this? 

 

Defeat filled your eyes, heightening the sinister quality of his smile in the second before you let them close. Protected yourself with darkness as you resigned yourself to this, to him.

 

“What… What do you want me to do?” you asked, the weak surrender in your voice somehow worse than anything. At least it got Illumi to retract the needles,  allowing your hand to cover your neck, protecting the skin from the lingering sensation of those dangerous points. You opened your eyes, curling in on yourself in a protective slump as you were met with the smug victory in his smile.

 

“From now on, you won’t fight against me. You will be obedient and loyal, the perfect wife,” Illumi told you, extending a hand in one of his practiced gestures.

 

You took a deep breath, wincing at his use of that word, then nodded.

 

“You understand, don’t you? Your life is mine, no matter what you choose.” 

 

“I understand,” you said, hand dropping from your neck to hang limply at your side.

 

“Good!” Illumi exclaimed, the suffocating faux-happiness in his tone making you flinch, “Now, take off your clothes.”

 

If your mouth weren’t so dry, you’d have choked in surprise at that request. How ill-fitted it was to your despairing state of mind, to the anger you could still feel radiating off of him. 

 

“What?” you asked Illumi, unable to read his expression. This was a side of Illumi that you weren’t sure if you’d ever seen. He was upset, at least that much was clear, but instead of his usual empty mask, he held that disconcerning smile. A mask of another type, hiding emotions of a more volatile nature.

 

“I have to test you so I know you aren’t lying to stop me from punishing you. Take off your clothes,” Illumi repeated, dark eyes alight. It wasn’t a request, or even really an order. The words were making his point. From now on, you would do whatever Illumi told you to do. Endure whatever he saw fit to ask of you.

 

You drew in a shaky breath, meeting his eyes warily, but he didn’t move towards you or look away. Of course he wouldn’t make this easy. This type of punishment… The only thing you’d say was more frightening was his needles. 

 

Averting your eyes, you pulled off your shirt, letting it fall to the floor. Knowing Illumi was staring, you undid your pants with trembling hands next, deciding to push your underwear off with them and get that over with. Finally, your bra joined the pile of fabric and Illumi could see how far down your humiliated blush really spread. 

 

He’d seen you in hundreds of states of undress, and in far more compromising positions than this, but it felt different this time. Everything felt wrong, the anticipation of what Illumi might do had you shaking with fear, not lust.  

 

“Isn’t it easier when you do as I say?” Illumi asked, startling you into looking up at how close his voice was. When your eyes met his, he caught your chin, running his cold fingers with an out of place gentleness across your jaw. You didn’t push his hand away as you wanted, but you didn’t respond, either. 

 

Whatever Illumi found in your expression made his eyes narrow, the only warning you had before he pushed you backwards, pinning you to the wall with an unexpected violence while your hands scrambled for traction in his clothes. 

 

“Kiss me,” Illumi ordered without expression, not giving you even a second to get over the pain of being slammed into the wall. The wedge of his body was the only thing keeping you upright. Despite your tears and unsteady breathing, the pain in your back and head, your arms slowly raised to wrap around his neck. 

 

Illumi didn’t move, watching and waiting for you to do as he said. You almost couldn’t do it, too afraid of him to make your body move properly, but the alternative was unthinkable. So, closing your eyes, you pulled Illumi’s lips to yours of your own free will. 

 

How many times had you kissed Illumi? Never like this, naked and terrified, giving him affection out of nothing more than self-preservation. Never had you tasted the volatile flavor of anger on his lips as they separated to allow you to take the lead. It made it easier, at least, to fake desire, to move without fumbling. Your body knew how, even as your mind rebelled.

 

Just as you had so many times, you ran your fingers up and over his hair, tucking it away from falling between you. Steadying yourself with that familiar motion, with the feeling of the silky strands against your fingers.

 

Illumi hummed, a guttural sound, in response to that thoughtless movement. The false sense of control he’d allowed you was stripped as he pushed you even harder against the wall, using that leverage to kiss you with the violence you felt bubbling right beneath his thin veneer of discipline. 

 

Dominating and controlling. Possessive, Illumi’s hands staked a claim as they ran over your neck and shoulders, as they brushed over your chest and the curve of your waist, the shape of your hip. Hands so cold they burned, leaving a trail of imagined fire in their wake. Familiar hands, ones that had touched you countless times, that had loved you. 

 

Now, they dug into your hip before Illumi pulled away from the kiss. It left you breathless, confused and pained and sick with anguish. You knew was coming next, heard it with the shuffle of fabric. 

 

“Illumi... please don’t do this,” you begged, knowing you shouldn’t have but unable to stop the words.

 

“A good wife should always be accepting of her husband,” he reminded you pitilessly, “Hold onto me.”

 

You pushed down something that felt an awful lot like a sob, looking away from his dark eyes as you wrapped your arms around his shoulders, making it easier for him to pull one of your legs up. His other hand cupped your face before dropping, forcing your eyes to meet his. Dark anger swirled in that oh-so-familiar black, mixing with a manic lust. 

 

“This is where you’re meant to be, where you belong,” Illumi told you, lining himself up. 

 

You didn’t even have a chance to tell him that you weren’t ready, that you couldn’t handle this, that you were scared. Illumi stopped any attempt at speaking, overwhelming you entirely in both mind and body with the horribly invasive painful split as he pushed into you. 

 

It hurt. You’d endured so many pains in your life, _ because _ of your life, but this pain was different. Intimate and cruel, being harmed by something that should have been beautiful and loving. That  _ had _ been, before. 

 

It hurt because it was Illumi, a man you loved -and didn’t you, even still?- betraying you with this lustful rage. Forcing himself into you without preparation while you were scared and tense. 

 

It hurt because Illumi was all you had. You clung to him pathetically, a bitten-off scream becoming a whimper as he pulled out. Even when he roughly pushed back in, all you did was press your face into his shoulder to muffle your cries, seeking comfort in the scent of his shirt to stabilize yourself.

 

“Illumi-” you plead, begging for what, For mercy? For him to stop? For him to stop being angry with you? The plea was accented by a sharp gasp as he began a steady rhythm, speeding up. Too fast. Too hard. Each thrust of his hips pressed your spine to the wall painfully, stretched your inner walls without sympathy.

 

“You will  _ never _ try to leave me again,” Illumi told you, his voice far more affected than you’d ever heard it, unsteady, a particularly hard thrust emphasizing his words. 

 

“I won’t, I promise… I’ll never leave you again,” you vowed, pain creating the odd disarrayed tone of pleasure in your voice. The way you cried out at the agonizing feeling of being taken so brutally could have easily been mistaken as sounds of enjoyment.

 

Illumi pushed you up the wall further, getting your other leg up and around his hip so you would depend on him completely. Like that, he was able to look you in the eye as he fucked you. 

 

It would have been better if Illumi’s expression was blank, as uncomfortable as that had always been, because to his wild intensity, this complete lack of control, felt like a knife in your heart. You couldn’t pretend this was affection or desire. This was possession, the same as it would have been if he stuck you with his needles. 

 

And even despite all of that, the new position, combined with your bodies natural reaction to ease your discomfort, stirred something other than pain within you. Every time he pushed up, he rubbed against you as he filled you, a wonderfully horrible feeling. Your body was too used to Illumi’s, too used to reacting in a certain way. You felt the coiling of pleasure in your core, tightening around him.

 

Illumi’s eyes widened in surprise. Then he laughed, a cruel and breathless sound. 

 

“Amazing. No matter what happens, your body is still mine,” he said with a gleeful callousness, adjusting you so he could enter you like that with every thrust, betraying you now with pleasure rather than pain. 

 

Something in you wanted to scream, to pull his hair, to deny that idea. 

 

Instead, you whimpered, a soft, high-pitched sound that in no way resembled the miserable feeling of lust inside of you. Or maybe it did. And maybe none of that mattered because even when you squeezed your eyes shut, Illumi was still the only thing your scattered thoughts could focus on.

 

Your thoughts of black eyes and misery whirled together with the physical sensations of pain and desire, mixing and dizzying you. It was all too close, too fast, too much.

 

The faint smell of his skin, intensified with proximity. The pain of the horribly rough way he was using you, working out his anger into you. The heat of the pleasure that was building within you regardless of that pain. Because of that pain. Because of Illumi, always, always because of him.  

 

“Illumi,” you said, his name rising from your thoughts before you could stop it, one of the few coherent words you could grasp. Illumi responded with a low sound that sounded an awful lot like a stifled groan. A flood of heat rushed through your stomach at hearing it, the evidence of his desire managing to delight you despite everything.

 

“My cute little wife… Now you know who you belong to?” Illumi asked, the strange sweetness of that sentimental name ruined by his merciless assault against you. That contradiction was why you hated him, why you ached for him, why you tried to run, why you knew you’d never escape. Illumi was all you had, your world had become defined by his presence within it. 

 

“You,” you told him without doubt,  the word becoming a whine when Illumi’s fingers dug painfully into thigh, “I... belong to you…  _ Illumi _ .” Your voice was shamefully breathless from the hot build of fiery and desperate desire, from his ceaseless torment. You were going to come, even with the pain of being slammed against the wall so roughly, even with his violent pace. Of course you would come for Illumi. 

 

He hummed, his face nuzzling against your cheek, close enough that his breath caused chills to break out across your sweat-sheened skin. It felt good to your quickly deteriorating mind, sending a shiver down your spine.

 

“Do you love me?” Illumi asked, a dark humor in his tone, fucking you against the wall with an intensity you knew meant he was close. You were, too, for that matter. Illumi threatened you and hurt you, kept you like a favored doll and punished you for misbehavior, but you couldn’t stop it. You couldn’t help it. 

 

“I do… I love you,” you gasped out. It wasn’t a lie spoken out of self-preservation for the fate you’d sealed yourself into, or even one born of your pleasure drunken brain, but the vile truth. “I... love... you.”

 

“Good,” Illumi praised, “Come for me”

 

And you did. 

 

It didn’t matter that you weren’t Illumi’s puppet, his command pushed you the edge as certainly as any puppeteer could command their marionette. The tension in your core snapped, the viscous flow of release flooding your mind and body with bliss, making your thighs tighten and tremble unsteadily around his hips, nails pushing into the fabric at his back, your back arching against the wall. 

 

All at once, everything was right. You rejoiced in the feeling of him chasing you to the edge, in the feeling of Illumi using you, pressed intimately close, his harsh breaths hitting your jaw. For that second, it was easy for you to believe that this was the way things were meant to be, this violence, this expression of anger used to mimic lust. This Illumi.

 

You felt him come, pushing in as deep he could and squeezing your still trembling thighs in a bruising grip, his body crushing yours to the wall. 

 

It hurt. It made you remember. This was reality. As your mind came down from that high, addled by the rush of emotions, by everything that had happened. The fear, the shame, the defeat. The heart which you’d given to a monster of a man.

 

Illumi took a deep breath before pulling out, making you wince. Everything hurt, and you knew there were fresh tears in your eyes. You had no fight left, though. Nothing but a bone deep exhaustion. You doubted you could stand if he put you down. 

 

“Are you crying because you’re scared?” Illumi asked. He ran the hand that wasn’t helping support you over your hair, a messy and sweaty mess. “You shouldn’t be, I was lying.”

 

“Lying,” you repeated back in a hoarse voice, a far away rage burning and ignored.

 

“There’s no reason to make you a puppet now that I know your true feelings. You can’t truly leave me, can you?”  


	46. Chrollo Lucilfer + Thigh Riding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man this is some WHOLESOME shit

In the limited amount of time you had with him, you enjoyed the small moments of quiet relaxation with Chrollo. You loved sitting in his lap with your head against his shoulder, basking in his warmth and company as he told you stories of his adventures in the world. You didn’t really mean for it to devolve into anything else than innocent.

See, it was pure accident that when you adjusted your position your skirt rode up. Completely incidental that Chrollo moved at the exact moment your legs were astride his thigh. And only by chance had you chosen to wear a skirt that morning, meaning that all that separated your sensitive skin from the firm press of his leg was a flimsy layer of silky fabric.

Just as unintended as everything else was your involuntary gasp of surprised pleasure, and the shock of that feeling threatening to make you fall off the couch altogether. Chrollo held you, steadying you, and, maybe unintentionally, keeping you pressed against his leg in an awfully tempting way.

“Are you okay?” Chrollo asked.

You didn’t respond right away, your wide eyes jumping up to meet his. Something like understanding flashed in the gray when he saw your expression, his lips quirking with the obvious beginnings of a smirk despite his ‘concerned’ words. It made your stomach twist, fighting the urge to squirm and seek a little more stimulation.

“Mmhm,” you hummed instead, your eyes flitting away from his in a sudden burst of shyness.

Chrollo tilted his head up, wearing a look of playful excitement..

“Really? Your cheeks are flushed. Or is that because of… this?” he asked, using the hands that held you to guide you to roll your hips, pushing you forward by moving his leg to mimic the accidental motion from before in a not-so-accidental way. All the while, Chrollo’s eyes were on yours, his smirk growing at your soft sound of enjoyment.

You let out a heavy breath under the pressure of your stoked desire, hands braced against his chest.

“Can we…go to the bedroom?” you asked, eyes flicking up to his hopefully. He looked at you, thinking for a moment.

“Do you think you can come like this, on my leg?” Chrollo asked curiously. A flash of heat filled you at hearing that question. There was something awfully dirty about this situation, about the idea of what he’d proposed. As if to help you answer, Chrollo moved again, grinding you against his thigh and making you whimper.

“I.. I don’t know…” you responded, breathless from another guided roll of your hips, this time partially of your own accord.  

“I think you can,” Chrollo told you, “Try. I’d like to see.” With that request, his hands left your hips, leaving you to move on your own. You met Chrollo’s eyes, trying to get him to give you an out and save you from the daunting idea of putting on a show like this, but all you got was his smug smirk and a body full of desperate lust.

You groaned in defeat, eyes fluttering closed as you leaned into him, beginning to experimentally rut yourself against his thigh.

“You don’t have to be shy,” Chrollo told you sweetly, running his hands over your waist, down your thighs. You shivered at the touch. He was smiling, you could hear it even if you couldn’t bring yourself to look, even though you felt his eyes on you. It was too much to see Chrollo looking so composed as you began to shamelessly grind against his leg.

It was embarrassing, and you did feel shy, but those things were started to fade as your mind distorted with pleasure, with need. There was raw carnality to riding his thigh like this, a very animal chase of pleasure as you set a steady rhythm, tilting and moving your hips until each movement meant delicious friction against your clit.

Your panties were getting wet, Chrollo’s pants were likely wet, too. But that thought was quickly pushed from your mind, because the wetness only added another wonderful layer to the friction. Even still, there was never any full and direct pressure. It was a teasing sensation, making your need to get off even stronger, especially since you had to work yourself into it.

Thinking that brought you around to another circular thought. Chrollo was letting you use his thigh to pleasure yourself. Outside your own mind, you heard his sharp exhale at your especially loud moan at that dirty thought, at your needy fervor as you reached for release.

“Have you thought about this before?” Chrollo asked, his voice playful and low against you, warm. So warm, everything about Chrollo was hot enough to burn you, from the hands that gently pet your skin to the shoulder your face was pressed against. His composure was no longer intimidating, but sexy. Unbearably so. He didn’t seem bothered by your lack of answer, continuing with a deeper humor in his tone, “Or maybe you’ve tried it on your own. On the arm of a couch, perhaps? I’d have liked to see that, but…” Chrollo made a sound, something between a breathless laugh and a deep groan, “I prefer this.”

The noise you made in response was high and breathy, clearly nothing more than a mindlessly lustful response to hearing his voice, hearing that minor expression of desire.

You were close, your hands possibly ruining his shirt with the way they were fisted so tightly in his collar in an attempt to steady yourself. The swell of heat in your core was becoming tight, your entire body tensing.

“Chrollo,” you got out through your breathless panting, his name leaving your lips without thought, holding onto him so tightly you’d have worried about hurting a normal man, “I  _can’t-_ ”

“Come for me,” Chrollo encouraged, his hands steadying your legs, “I told you before, I’d like to see.”

That was really all you needed, his voice affecting you much more than the words. Vaguely, you were aware that you were saying his name again, your breath rising in shallow gasps and shuttering as you rode his thigh.

When you came, the wonderful friction sending over the edge, it was sweet. The release of tension made your hips stutter as you sought to prolong the heat, pushing yourself against him in an uneven pace and melting your mind into nothing more than a mess of desire and satisfaction, of love for the man you were holding onto.  

The glow faded, your body relaxing into him. Awareness came with the slightly embarrassing sensation of how wet you were, your incredibly uneven breathing, and your flushed skin. Still, you smiled, leaning back to look at Chrollo.

“Now can we go to the bedroom?”


	47. Killua + Knuckle Kisses

Eyes wide and hands shaking, you followed behind Killua as he stalked away from the street corner. Fear was pushing adrenaline through your veins at a rapid pace, not because of the lowbrow thugs who had tried to attack you, or the violence Killua had used to make them drop, and not even because of the fury Killua had turned and punched the wall with, crumbling that section of faded brick effortlessly. You were scared because his eyes were dark, and his rage was edged with a heart rending misery.

“Killua,” you said, afraid to call out too loudly for fear of spooking him. It made him stop, facing away from you with his shoulders tense and head low, his fists clenched at his sides. One of them was bleeding, he’d gone out of his way to let himself get injured when he punched the wall, “Killua… Are you alright?” It was a dumb question, obviously he wasn’t, but you didn’t want to push. Didn’t dare to.

“Those guys..” Killua said in a detached tone, keeping his back to you, “They wanted to hurt you.” that gave you pause, just a moment. Of course they had wanted to kill you.

“I-I know, I-”

“Do you?” Killua asked, cutting you off as he turned around, shutting you up with that empty gaze, “They were going to torture and kill you just for fun.” You winced, taken aback by his blunt and hollow assertion.

“You don’t know that, Killua,” you said quietly, trying to be soothing.

“I do,” he told you without doubt, “I know because I know what bloodlust feels like. I know the thrill of killing and how it can affect someone. I know, because I used to be a killer, too.” 

There it was. The secret Killua had only hinted at in the months you’d been together. His eyes met yours, slightly more focused with the confession. More vulnerable.

You swallowed past the lump in your throat, holding his gaze unfalteringly. You’d sort of guessed that he’d reveal something like this. Nobody, not even professional Hunters, knew the underworld techniques Killua did. Thinking about it and hearing the truth were completely different, however, but you knew he didn’t want your tears or pity. So you shoved down that emotion and met his eyes with strength.

“The past doesn’t define you, you’re the one who told me that,” you told him, offering up his own words in the hopes he’d listen. Killua tensed, his teeth clenching and swollen and bloody fist tightening, dripping blood onto the cement. 

“Would you still say that if you know what I’ve done? My hands are way more bloody than those guys,” Killua told you seriously.

“Of course I would, you’re nothing like them!” you told him with complete conviction, emotion rising in an upset rush to hear him even try to compare himself to those thugs. Killua chuckled, a short and joyless sound.

“You’re right. I was worse. My family raised me to be the perfect assassin. I was good at it,” Killua said, emotion returning to his voice slowly, “A lot of things have changed since then… But it’s taking all of my willpower to not go back and kill those guys.”

His words settled in the dark night air, slightly chilly and charged with an uncomfortable current. He meant what he said, you could see it in the tense lines of his body. Killua was dangerous, but you weren’t scared. 

“Killua,” you said lowly, taking a step towards him, holding his eyes. “Tonight, you protected me… Saved my dumb ass from getting hurt,” you took another step, meeting his eyes evenly. When you reached down to take his injured hand in yours, he flinched, but didn’t pull away, watching you silently. “I don’t care what your hands have done, I trust them. I trust you. Completely.”

Careful not to press your lips too harshly on the bruises, although you doubted he felt much of the pain, you kissed his knuckles. One by one, and a fifth on the back of his hand.

“So don’t be an idiot. At the very least listen to your own words, because you are… Brilliant,” Even with your eyes cast down, words spoken into his hand you still held, you still whispered the last word, unable to voice it and the emotions it entailed properly. 

After a second to compose yourself, you looked up, wide eyed and determined, to meet his gaze. “Okay?”

Killua looked down at you, wearing an expression of muted surprise. He looked young, horrible fragile, yet stronger than you could fathom. Beautiful, so beautiful. 

Then the moment ended. Killua’s lips quirked into a smirk, and the tension dropped. He let his hand fall, intertwining it with yours. 

“You have blood on your lips. You look like a vampire,” Killua told you. His eyes still held traces of that fragility, but you knew the storm had passed. You wiped your mouth with your sleeve, a devious feeling putting a smile on your face as a new thought came to you.

“Maybe we should try vampires movies, next.”


	48. Yandere Hisoka + Cheating

It wasn’t even really that surprising when playing cards suddenly lodged themselves in the heads of your last two opponents. The sight merely meant the expected end of your world, but your brain lacked the capacity to process the way you felt as anything other than raw and unbridled extremes of emotion, inflamed by the adrenaline coursing through your veins from the messy fight.

Forty-nine hours. Your freedom had lasted two days and an hour, seven hours longer than the last time and ending under the the hateful gaze of the full moon in an empty field in some small town in the middle of nowhere.

“ _I found you_ ,” Hisoka’s voice called happily from behind as the last two corpses thumped lifelessly to the grass alongside the five others you’d killed. One of the first lessons a fighter learned was to control instinct and adrenaline, but you no longer felt like a fighter. Hisoka’s voice filled you with fear, with despair, and with relief. That was the worst of it, wasn’t it? That was what pushed you into running, because if you turned and saw his smile and remembered that your hate was double sided, you were sure it would drive you insane.

The ground hit harder than the men who’d attacked, and you didn’t need to check with Gyo to know that it was his Bungee Gum that had sent you tumbling to the dewy grass, slick with both blood and water. It was a trick you’d fallen for many times. What you didn’t expect was the sudden force of Hisoka’s shoe slamming into the place between your shoulder blades, making you exhale with a heavy grunt. The fight hadn’t broken any ribs, but they were badly bruised.

With your cheek on the ground, you were looking straight into the empty eyes of one of the men with a card in his brain. He was the one who kept on calling you Hisoka’s Bitch, that Twisted Magician’s Whore. What sick joke was it that you couldn’t even be the one to kill him?

“My, my, this is quite the mess.” Hisoka hummed in dissatisfaction, his heel digging into your back painfully. It hurt, but you stifled any cry of pain, your swollen fists clenching on the ground on either side of you.

Saying nothing, you forced yourself to remain calm when you felt his eyes fixate on you. Hisoka was upset, actually upset. Usually when you ran away he was more playful about it, but this was…

“Look at you… You  _wanted_  to get hurt, didn’t you?” Hisoka asked silkily, darkly. You could recognize the danger in his tone, far more of a threat than the shoe on your back. “It’s even worse than I thought, I had no idea how  _faithless_  you really were.”

Hisoka released you from being underneath his foot, not giving you any time to take advantage of being released before kneeling above your legs and grabbing your hips.

“W-what are you doing!?” you asked in choked shocked fear, struggling as he got you propped up on your knees.

But you already knew, it wasn’t as if Hisoka was subtle in the way he ground himself against your ass. Here, in a place that smelled like earth rot, grass, and blood, in a clearing filled with the dead and your own personal tragedy, that reeked of his anger, he intended to… “You’re dis-”

“I’d be careful about what you say if I were you,” Hisoka stopped you, pulling you up by your hair to speak right into your ear, “Your game got me  _all worked up_ … I’d hate to break you when we’ve only just been reunited.”

You whimpered, scalp burning, but he let you drop, occupying himself with getting your pants undone and pushed out of the way.

“I don’t care to share my things. You should have been more careful,” Hisoka told you, pushing saliva slicked fingers into you without warning and making you yelp in shock. The vain attempt to close your legs only earned you a sharp slap to your thigh, then you heard him moving his own pants out of the way, could imagine what his hand looked like wrapped around the shaft.

“It wasn’t my fault,” you protested weakly, eyes squeezing shut and body trembling as you felt the smooth skin of his dick brush against your sensitive folds, wet with his saliva. You shook with terror, with disgust, with shame, but also with want. Because just like that stupid dog whose mouth watered when he heard the bell, you were nothing more than a trained bitch for Hisoka’s entertainment.

“You let them hurt you…” Hisoka said lowly, “But your pain is mine.” His fingers dug into your hips as he pushed himself into you, uncaring and callous. No matter how prepared you’d thought yourself to be, you were unable to stifle crying out at the agonizing burn. “That’s right.. Cry out for me,” Hisoka told you in a sweeter tone, pleasure finally disrupting the anger.

You didn’t want to do as he said, but just like usual, the choice wasn’t yours to make. He was too harsh, too rough, cruel in the way he pushed you into the bloodied grass beneath him, in the merciless way he was using you. Your cries mixed with his moans, falling on nothing but dead ears.

“Hisoka, please s-slow down,” you asked, speaking because there was nothing else. You wouldn’t fight, couldn’t fight. “I’m sorry, I’m really…” you cut off with a sob at a harder thrust.

“No,” he denied quickly, breathless, “You belong to me, to do with as I please,” Hisoka said, pulling your back into a further arch, “You already know, don’t you?” he asked, his fingers going under your shirt to trail down your sides in a way that was almost ticklish, strange against the uncaring painful stretch with every snap of his hips, “You’re my… Most precious… Toy.”

There were tears in your eyes, hidden with your face pressed against your braced arms. It hurt, Hisoka was hurting and humiliating you on purpose for some believed slight against him in a field of corpses, forcing you back to his side when you fought so hard for freedom from him, and even still… Even still, you wanted those words. That praise. They brought something warm into your mind, to your body.

Hisoka groaned, a heavy and pleased sound, pulling you up by your neck in a bowed arch to push his hands up your shirt, under your bra, touching your skin with the same hastened frenzy of his lustful thrusts, finding and pushing on bruises and sliding across your sweat slicked skin.

“It hurts,” you protested, eyes still closed and tears streaming down your face.

“Good,” Hisoka cooed, “Think of it as a lesson… Next time you cheat, I won’t be so gentle.”


	49. Chrollo Lucilfer Soulmate Part 2

It had been a week since you met him. Seven days since Chrollo, your Soulmate, drove you home from a place that could only be called a criminal hideout. He had apologized when the car stopped, meeting your eyes with a stare you wouldn’t easily forget and asking if you could manage to be patient until he had time to properly talk to you. What else could you have said but yes? What else could you but try not to kill yourself in anticipation as you marked down the days until he said he would meet you again?

Yes, you were curious about what was going on in that abandoned church, with that odd collection of people. And yes, it was a big deal when the news broke of the theft of a recently donated exhibit of historical artifacts. A dangerous and violent crime. Yes, it should have scared you, but it didn’t.

Hopelessly hopeless, you were blinded by the hearts in your eyes. What you cared about, more than anything, was the mystery of your Soulmate.

One week after Chrollo had bid you farewell, you spent the entire morning getting ready, meticulously planning out your clothes and taking great care in looking less like the sweaty, tired, and embarrassed mess from a week ago and more like the type that would fit in alongside the lovely image you held in your mind of your Soulmate. 

The address he’d given led to a small coffee shop tucked away and easily overlooked on the busy streets. You tried to imagine the man with slicked back hair and a huge coat worn over a shirtless chest going into this type of place, but couldn’t. Still, the red string on your finger couldn’t possibly lie. Taking a deep breath, you opened the door, welcomed by the cheery jingle of a bell and the rich scent of coffee.

At first, you felt a pang of nerves, scanning the small cafe and not finding the person you were looking for. But your love was meant for second sight, wasn’t it? And what else could you say about the way your heart nearly stopped at the image of the dark haired man sitting beside one of the windows, a book open in front of him and dark hair falling loose in front of a white bandage covering his tattoo. At the same time you froze in the doorway, his round eyes rose to meet yours, a small smile completing the image of a face you’d happily spend a lifetime admiring.

“Hello!” called the barista from behind the counter, breaking you from your trance. You smiled back at her with a hello, forcing yourself back into some sort of normalcy in walking to Chrollo’s table and sliding into the bench across from him. You may have acted like a nervous freak last time, but this time… This time for sure.

“Hello-”

“You’re beautiful,” you said, cutting off Chrollo’s greeting with the first words to make it through the chaos of your mind, spoken a bit too loud in the relative quiet of the cafe.

Smooth.

People were looking. Your chest tightened with the worst embarrassment you’d felt in… About a week. Despite that, Chrollo’s smile widened, his laugh a sound too warm to really be called mocking. You cast your eyes downwards, staring into the black surface of the coffee he must have ordered for you to avoid his eyes.

“Isn’t the man supposed to say that?” he asked lightly. You let out a breath, shaking your head with an awkward laugh, trying to calm the urge to slide under the table.

“I wouldn’t really know,” you admitted, cursing your inexperience. You’d always assumed once you met your Soulmate, things would go smoothly, that you’d know what to do. Then again, you were also the person who had traversed one of the most dangerous parts of town with nothing but a can-do attitude to protect yourself.

“I see,” Chrollo said, “In any case, you do look beautiful. That color suits you.”

Your eyes shot up to him, breath catching.

“Thank you,” you replied belatedly, the warm flush from his praise cutting through your discomfort somewhat. At least enough to ask what you really wanted to know. “Is all of your… ah… Business wrapped up now?”

“It is,” Chrollo said without hesitation, showing no reaction to your choice of words. You wondered if perhaps you’d made a mistake in your assumptions, how could a criminal speak so casually of his crimes?

“What are you going to do now?” you asked. Chrollo’s head fell to the side, his eyes cast out the window for a moment.

“Scatter,” he said quietly, almost to himself. You jolted in your seat.

“You’re leaving?” The horror in your voice was evident. Chrollo looked back to you, a strange expression on his face.

“Would you come with me, if I asked?” he questioned. 

You waited for his serious expression to drop, for Chrollo to smile and say it was a joke. You waited, but his gaze remained firm. Your mouth fell open, words taking a moment to find their way out.

“You’re serious?” you asked, hushed in disbelief. 

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

Chrollo’s lips twitched.

“Where would you like to go?”

You stomach flipped oddly, heart pounding too fast. That line should have sounded corny, like a bad romance movie, but he made it sound so  _genuine_. 

The logical part of your brain screamed at you for even considering his words. Chrollo was possibly,  _definitely_ , a criminal. A dangerous man. If you were smart, you’d have been running the second his friend cut your neck. Even above all of that, you had only met him all of twice.

“You don’t have to decide right-”

But he was your Soulmate.

“I’ll go,” you cut him off, the rush of excitement leaving you nearly dazed. You smiled at him, hopelessly hopefully, holding up your pinkie, “It’s fated, right?” 


	50. Pariston Hill + Ingénue

Awe and anxiety warred in your mind, the only thing keeping them in check being a blinding disbelief that you stood in Pariston Hill’s apartment, watching out the large windows as the storm raged outside. The lights were dimmed, and each blinding strike of lightning lit the room as if it were midday. It was hard to tell if you found the storm or his apartment itself more impressive, although you tried to avoid overtly gawking. You were already painfully aware of all of the ways you were out of place in his company.

Truthfully, you still couldn’t wrap your mind around the fact that he’d invited you out to begin with. You were certain Pariston could have nearly any girl he wanted, and most of them probably had far more grace and experience with men. No matter how hard you tried, it was difficult to get rid of the awkward racing of your heart whenever he met your eyes, whenever he said anything nice or casually touched you.

“What is it that you’re thinking so hard about? If you frown any harder, your face might stick like that,” Pariston warned, breaking you from your thoughts. You turned around to look at him with wide eyes, your expression relaxing as you met his teasing smile.

“Oh,” you said, feeling the butterflies flutter anew, “Well, I was just thinking… That I’m happy you asked me to go out together… And, I’m very grateful you’re letting me wait out the storm here,” you added quickly, trying not to fidget the way you wanted to beneath his gaze.

“Of course, you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like!” he replied with a smile, “Now, do you have a preference in wine?” he asked, setting down two glasses on the cabinet. You blinked, wondering if there was a way to say that the only wine you’d ever had was the few times you’d attended your grandparent’s church without sounding like a child.

“Whatever you’re having?” you said with as much confidence as you could, hating the awkward tilt of your words. Did his expression change? You couldn’t tell. He reached beneath the cabinet and pulled out a bottle, uncorking it and pouring two glasses of what looked like blood, almost black in the low light with a reddish hue.

“You know, I was rather surprised when you agreed to come out with me so easily,” Pariston told you with a mock secrecy as he handed you the glass. Your head tilted to the side, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“Eh? Weren’t you worried at all? I’m sure you’ve heard at least some of the rumors about me,” Pariston said, then he raised a finger, as if lecturing you, “A cute young girl should be more careful about who she chooses to date. I’d hate to think of what could happen if I were a less honorable man, luring you into my apartment under false pretenses.”

You looked at him mutely, unsure of how to respond and more than a little caught up on his use of the word ‘cute’.

Noticing your expression, Pariston laughed, like it was a joke.

“No, no, don’t look so worried!” he soothed, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I only meant I wouldn’t want anything terrible to happen to you. You should be more suspicious of people.”

After a moment, you managed to laugh it off with a small smile, but something still felt off. Like Pariston intended there to be a deeper meaning to his words, found in the intense look in his eyes. You weren’t sure how to tell.

“Maybe, but… It’s sad to live without trying to see the best in people, don’t you think?” you asked, hoping this was the right response, “I would never want to be judged only because of what other people say about me, so I won’t do it to others. Plus, you’ve never been anything but kind to me. So that’s why I trust you, you’re different,” you said, nodding your head with the last sentiment for emphasis.

Pariston’s smile didn’t change, but his eyes hardened, somehow, boring into yours for an extended moment. Had you said something wrong? The moment dragged on, your anxiety lurching uncomfortably as you reviewed your words to find the mistake. Then he broke the moment and spoke,

“It isn’t an act, is it… You truly are that naive.”

You felt it, a flash of fearful danger, and then Pariston’s hand was on the back of your head, his fingers tangled in your hair. The other wrapped around your waist, pulling you against him as his lips sought yours.

Glass shattered in a high pitched cacophony of sound, blood-like wine splashing across the kitchen tiles and your bare legs when your hand unconsciously let the glass slip. You tried to pull away from Pariston, guilt for the mess momentarily overriding the shock of him kissing you, but he only held you tighter, running his tongue along the seam of your lips to make you part them. Unable to comprehend everything that was happening at once, you gave in.

Lightning struck, lighting up the room bright enough to be seen through the screen of your closed eyelids. You’d never been kissed like this before, neatly and dominantly, his hands keeping you in place without faltering. Already, you were feeling desperate for air, for space, overwhelmed by the way he smelled, the heat of his body against yours.

Thunder crashed, synced to the roar of blood in your ears. This felt wrong, the tension in the room raising chills across your skin, but you were too flustered and breathless, too surprised and even delighted that Pariston would kiss you, to fight. Surrender was offered in the helpless brace of your hands against his shoulders, a need for stability.

Pariston pulled away, allowing you to breathe in short, panting gasps. You felt… something. Was it arousal? Like butterflies, but deeper. Hotter. Like fear, but far more insidious. Was your skin burning for his touch, or burning in anxiety? You couldn’t tell, you couldn’t tell, you couldn’t-

“Pariston, I don’t-” you began, wanting to refuse him gently, or at least try to talk this out.

“Don’t you trust me?” he asked you in a low tone, some sort of humor dancing in the brown eyes that met yours. You exhaled sharply. At your breathless stuttered answer, the only kind you could form, both of his hands dropped to your hips, turning the two of you from the mess of glass and wine until your lower back hit something sharp. The island counter.

Your cry of pain was swallowed by his lips returning to yours, his body keeping you pinned while his hands crept up your skirt, thumbs hooking in the waistband of your underwear to push them until they could fall down to your ankles. Soft fingers traced back up your thighs, moving inward and upward with obvious intent.

Too much, too fast. With a jittery knee-jerk response, your trembling hands dropped to stop his.

“W-wait, I-I’m not… I c-can’t,” you struggled to turn your face away from him and get a full breath, some sort of deep set panic in your chest at the direction this was taking so quickly, “Please, I’ve never… Been with… Anyone…”

Pariston froze, as if startled, his uneven breath mixing with your own in the quiet. Some of the tension relaxed, the heat easing as he turned his face away. He pulled his hands out from under yours, resting them on the countertop on either side of you.  

Then he laughed, a short sound that sent waves of unease through you.

“I hate this, you know,” he began intimately, sounding delighted despite the words he spoke, “Your innocence and vulnerability… It’s like you’ve just been waiting for me to take advantage of you. Yet… I find myself hesitating. I wonder why that is…?” Pariston muttered the last part, almost as if speaking to himself.

“What are you saying?” you asked quietly, confusion protecting you from the sane part of your mind that screamed in fear.

Pariston pulled back, his attitude brightening. The smile he wore held none of the excited mania you’d heard him speak with, looking every bit as innocent as any other smile he’d given you.

“In simple terms, I’m saying that I’ve grown fond of you,” Pariston said sweetly, stunning you, “You trust me, don’t you?”

Did you?

You had no idea. It seemed that distraction was all Pariston was waiting for, though, as his hand finally made it up your thigh. When his fingers brushed across your slit, you felt your body go taunt, a sharp gasp of shock leaving your mouth.

“No, no, relax,” Pariston admonished, stepping close to nuzzle his face into your hair sweetly, speaking into your ear, “This is normal when people date, isn’t it? I’m not going to hurt you.” His fingers pushed deeper, seeking your clit and only making you more tense, your hands falling to the counter behind you for balance. “Aren’t you curious about what it feels like to be touched by someone else?”

“Pariston-” you closed your eyes as he began rubbing circles against your clit, the stimulation casting out whatever words you’d been about to say. It felt good to have him touch you, of course it felt good, better than when you did it yourself. Even if it felt wrong, maybe… Maybe it was okay. Unconsciously, your stance widened, allowing him more room.

Pariston hummed happily, his fingers moving with more urgency. You couldn’t contain a moan, one of your hands rising to your face to try and cover whatever expression you had.

“Is this okay? Do you want to stop now?” he asked you in concern. You shook your head, breathing unsteady as you felt the heat building deliciously within you.

“No, no.. Please…” you got out, the words muffled by your hand and harsh amidst your shallow breathing.

Despite your answer, he did stop, hands going to your hips to push you up to the counter, letting you sprawl awkwardly with Pariston between your thighs.

“Wh-what are you doing?” you asked in protest, in surprise, in an unhappy reminder of your discomfort.

“I want to know if innocence has a particular flavor. You’ll let me, won’t you?” Pariston asked, pushing your legs further apart and settling your knees on his shoulders.

“Let you?” you asked breathlessly, feeling some sort of shame at the lewd image of him between your naked thighs. He seemed to take that as acceptance.

The first wet brush of Pariston’s tongue against your clit felt so good it was almost overwhelming, your body jolting at the sensation. It made you gasp, his firm touch keeping you still for him to repeat the motion. Already, you were shaking.

It wasn’t at all like when you touched yourself, the never-enough fever heat of your fingers rubbing quick circles against your clit. No, the patterns Pariston’s tongue traced across your heated flesh were satisfying in a way you’d never felt, a full bloom of sensation and heat.

When one of his fingers teased your entrance, you could barely even form a coherent objection. The thoughts simply had no traction, falling away at the new stimulation as it pushed in. And that felt right, didn’t it? It satiated the ache of emptiness your sexuality inherently dictated. The second finger hurt a little bit, but the pain of the stretch was lessened by the taunt coil of pleasure encouraged with every stroke of his tongue.

“Pariston-” you gasped out, disgustingly needy as you writhed beneath him, so close that you could feel yourself beginning to unravel to meet your end, “Please, I-I can’t, I’m-”

Your back arched away from the marble that was warmed by your flushed body, your hips senselessly pushing against Pariston’s fingers, against his tongue, into the warmth of the drug-like intoxication of pleasure and the way it bubbled your thoughts into nothingness and made everything sweet. Your breathing was heavy, your eyes closed to the world as you coasted on that feeling.

“You still trust me, don’t you?” Pariston asked sweetly.

“Mmhmm,” you hummed in response, unfocused still.

Thunder crashed.  

“That’s good… I’m glad… I’m going to enjoy ruining you.”


	51. Illumi Zoldyck Rawing his Wife from Behind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter titles are only getting more romantic

“You were behaving like that on purpose,” Illumi accused from behind, startling you. Turning your head with a jerky movement, you looked at him over your shoulder, leaning in the doorway of the hotel suite bedroom. It took a moment to get over the start of his sudden appearance and realize what he was talking about, but when you did, it came with an awkward feeling of chagrin.

The only reason you ever teased Illumi was because you were sure he didn’t realize what you were doing. It was like a game. He hadn’t reacted in anyway to your flirtatious touching or suggestive actions through the night, so you’d assumed, like always, that he didn’t notice.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you told Illumi, feeling a bit self conscious at being caught in your childish little game. Nervous, too, considering his obviously displeased mood.

“Oh?” Illumi asked lightly, “Perhaps I should send you home, after all…”

Your eyes widened at his threat of sending you back home, and after all that you’d done to prove you could be trusted to be taken on a mission with him.

“The job doesn’t start until tomorrow, tonight was just fun,” you plead with wide eyes, trying to convince him of your sincerity, “I promise to be perfectly professional the rest of the trip, I was just excited.”

Illumi hummed, his dark eyes boring into yours. 

Seconds or minutes or hours or years might have past and you wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference as he deliberated without expression, your breath stopped the whole time.

“All right,” Illumi finally agreed. You let out a sigh of relief. “You’ll still have to make amends for tonight. I can’t allow your misbehavior to go unpunished.”

Unpunished. Hearing Illumi say that word gave you a complicated feeling, an anticipation that could either lead to something very, very good or very, very bad. You swallowed hard, knowing that you’d have to bite the bullet and do as he said if you wanted to stay.

“How can I do that?” you finally asked, your voice hesitant.

“Get on your knees,” Illumi said, nothing aggressive or particularly emphasized in his tone, yet you knew it to be an unquestionable order. Not that you really minded… No, hearing him say that filled you with a good sort of anticipation, even if it was edged with a special type of nerves. An odd sensation of shy butterflies only Illumi could seem to give you.

“Okay,” you agreed, your voice even softer than before.

Licking your lips, you fell to your knees, looking up at him as he approached to stand in front of you. Already, your breathing was fast. You reached up, ready to undo his belt, but Illumi stopped you.

“No. Put your hands behind your back,” he told you. Your chest collapsed with a heavy sigh of frustration, but you did as ordered.

“It’s unnecessary to draw attention to yourself in public. Not only as an assassin, but as my wife,” Illumi said, palming himself through the layers of constricting fabric.

“I understand,” you said, your tongue darting out to lick your lips again as you forced your eyes back up to meet his, stomach twisting with just the right amount of lustful discomfort.

“Next time you misbehave like that, I’ll send you home,” Illumi warned, undoing his belt and pushing his pants down to release himself from the confines of his pants and underwear, taking his semi-erection in one hand and stroking the shaft in a smooth motion. You had to grip your wrist hard enough to hurt with your opposite hand to keep them linked behind your back, itching to reach up and touch him.

“I understand,” you said softly, watching with rapt attention as he stroked himself to full hardness, the soft pink head only inches from your face.

“Open your mouth,” Illumi said. You did so, shuffling forward to allow him to push past your lips.

Automatically, your eyes closed, allowing yourself to fully focus on Illumi as he filled your mouth. Soft, the skin of the head was so soft against your tongue, bearing the slightly bitter flavor of precum. You leaned further, expecting him to want you to take him in your throat, but Illumi didn’t remove his hand from the base, pulling out to thrust shallowly into your mouth.

Oh.

Adjusting yourself, you moved with him, working your tongue against the smooth skin and hollowing your cheeks with each pass. It was making a mess, your saliva dripping down your chin and filling the room with sloppy and wet sucking noises.

You cursed the need to keep your legs spread for balance, your bodies reaction making you ache terribly for some sort of pressure or satisfaction.

Due to Illumi’s usual lack of reaction, you were unsure of how close he was when his hand dropped into your hair, pulling you off. A string of saliva connected your lip to the swollen head, snapping as you moved away. Your eyes moved up to meet Illumi’s, a rush of delight rushing through you at the pink of his cheeks, especially noticeable considering his impassive expression.

“Stand up,” Illumi said, completely composed save for the slight blush and his achingly hard dick that still shone with your saliva. You stood, stumbling slightly in your unbalanced state of desire. No matter what, things were always uneven between you, Illumi’s constant control making your lack of control that much more obvious.

“Bend over the bed,” Illumi ordered next. Your uneven breathing caught harshly as a fresh wave of arousal shot through you at those words. Without hesitation, you obediently and wordlessly followed his request and bent over the footboard of the bed, bracing yourself against the heavy wooden frame.

Stepping out of his pants, Illumi moved behind you to kick your feet apart further, pushing your back down even more until you were bent over the footboard rather than just braced against it. It left you in an incredibly compromising position, made worse as he flipped up your skirt and pushed your underwear away.

“Oh?” Illumi said, unendingly casual despite the situation, “I haven’t even touched you yet, but you’ve soaked through your underwear,” he said, dragging a finger through your wet arousal and making you shiver with need, your teeth clamped hard on your lip to stifle a moan, “Maybe I should have thought of a harsher punishment…”

“Illumi…” you whined, feeling panicked by the mere idea he’d stop now, “Please?”

“Mmm, okay,” Illumi said lightly, his tone at odds with the way he pushed into you roughly, not stopping until he was entirely sheathed inside you. Both of you were slick enough to ensure there was no resistance or pain, just the fulfillment of a horrible and deep ache that you hadn’t even known you were suffering from until it was gone. Without it, lust had full reign over your body, and you couldn’t help but whimper at the wonderfully whole feeling of being filled, your body being joined with Illumi’s in such an intimate and pleasurable way.

While you expected him to pull out right away, to fuck you properly, Illumi leaned down over you, instead. An arm wrapped around your chest, his cold hand settling on your neck with the slightest of pressure.

“If I ever see you act in such a brazen manner in front of other people again, I’ll never allow you to leave our home again,” he said, his voice low, spoken into your ear directly.

Illumi pushed you back down, his hands sliding across your clothed torso to hold you steady by your hips so he could pull out with an agonizingly slow movement. All the while, your mind twisted with his threat, unable to push the fear and the pleasure apart when he thrust back into you hard enough to make you cry out.

It only took a few of those deliciously painful and hard thrusts for all of your thoughts, fearful or otherwise, to be lost somewhere along with whatever reason you’d abandoned when you fell in love with Illumi.

By the time he set a steady rhythm, fast and hard enough that you were sure it would break a girl who didn’t have the natural endurance of a Nen User, your mind was unable to find any type of clarity.  Everything, your entire being and world, had been erased. No, replaced. It was all Illumi, every frenzied thought, every wonderful flare of pleasure within you, the delicious gratification offered whenever he pushed in and the excited anticipation whenever he pulled out.

The position you were in was uncomfortable, but that didn’t matter. Tears were streaming from your shut eyes, sliding towards your hairline with the way you were bent over, but that didn’t matter either. Distantly, you were aware of the hot flush across your skin, of the sweat gathering on your temples, of the bruising pressure put on your hips, but you didn’t care.

Could Illumi hear you begging, praying, pleading, or was everything as far away to him as it was for you? Nonsensical and irrelevant, all that mattered was the feeling. Was Illumi. Was the growing tension begging to be released, to fill you fully with the pleasure only Illumi could bring you.

“Illumi,” you whined, your voice loud  -had it always been so loud?- and raspy, an articulation of your dire need, “ _Illumi, please, please I’m close pl-_ ” words were lost to complete incoherence as his fingers trailed from your hip to slide beneath, seeking your swollen clit to rub with the same feverish pace of his hips.

That was _it_. Your body strained, drawing up as the full exhilaration of release pulsed through you, following each press of his body inside of yours, prolonged by the fingers that didn’t stop against your clit. The feeling was the sweetness of surrender, the endless cascade of reason, it was to be filled and to belong.

When you felt Illumi come inside of you, pushing deep and rolling his hips unsteadily to ensure you were filled with every last drop, the feeling became love and bliss. A warmth taken from the coldness of his touch.

The magic faded when he pulled out, when reality knocked on the door of your consciousness and invited in all of the horribly unpleasant sensations you’d been able to ignore while caught in the enjoyment of sex. You groaned.

Taking a breath to bolster your strength, you pushed yourself upright, only for blackness to invade the corners of your vision, sending you stumbling. A pair of eternally steady arms caught you easily. 

You pushed your face into him, pushing yourself into his embrace.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, your voice muffled by his shirt, “I love you.” Illumi’s hand stroked the back of your head, his hum vibrating against your skin.

“I know.”


	52. Feitan is Sadistic and Smol

Stumbling and falling when Feitan released his grip on the front of your shirt, you hit the cold cement floor hard, air leaving your lungs in a painful ‘umph’ and the side of your head knocking against it with a thud.

“Get up,” he told you in a soft voice a moment later, not a trace of compassion in his tone. Your eyes squeezed shut, tears already forming as you realized what situation you’d gotten yourself into. It wasn’t like it was your fault some of the information you’d sold him was rotten, you weren’t dumb enough to intentionally mislead a member of the Phantom Troupe. Not that he seemed to care, dragging you into this cold cement room that smelled like blood and metal. There was a chance you were going to die. 

Steeling yourself with a heavy breath to stop from building up to hyperventilation, you got your arms and legs beneath you to stand up, trying to think of the words to convince him to spare you. 

“I’ll tell you-” you began to say, only to be cut off when Feitan kicked you over onto your back. The world spun, your head taking another painful knock as you blinked up with streaming eyes at the gray ceiling. Taking advantage of the moment you were stunned, Feitan’s foot pressed against your throat, crushing your windpipe while he watched with pitiless dark eyes.

“I could cut out your tongue,” he said emotionlessly as you choked, your panicked hands grasping at his foot to push it off, to get out from underneath, to breathe, “Or sew your lips closed… Do you care? Which do you like?”

Already, your vision was going black at the edges, his sadistic words sounding farther away as you struggled beneath the weight of his foot. You didn’t even care much about what he’d said, your mind occupied only with the need for oxygen. 

When he finally lifted his foot, you gasped in harshly, twisting to cough and sputter while your body tried to recover. Feitan didn’t care, kneeling down and pulling you up by your hair until you met his eyes. He watched as your face contorted in pain from the awful burn on your scalp, ignoring your hoarse cry and the way your hands desperately grasped at his to relieve the agonizing feeling. Then his eyes moved slightly, and you realized that it was because Feitan was smiling.

“You look better like this,” he said from behind his skull emblazoned bandana, his other hand raising to wipe up some of the wet stream of tears that slid down your cheek. You whimpered, sparking something especially dark in his unnerving eyes. “I never liked you. But now…” He gave a sharper tug to your hair, making you yelp, “Mmm,” Feitan hummed, a pleased sound, “Very pretty.” 

Feitan let you drop, allowing you a moment to try and sooth your tender scalp, your mind whirling with words, with the plea that would convince him to let you go.

“Open your mouth,” he said before you could come up with anything even resembling convincing.

“Wha-” you began to ask, startled by his sudden presence behind you. In the moment your lips parted to speak, however, Feitan pulled something into your mouth. A thick band of fabric. A gag. You cried out in panic, trying to pull away, but he didn’t allow you to move as he secured it behind your head. 

“What was that?” Feitan asked with sarcastic concern, coming around to catch your wrists before you could even attempt to get the gag off. “I didn’t hear you.”

Panic was setting in in earnest now, your begging turned to nothing more than incomprehensible mush as he secured your wrists with a length of rope, winding it around the sensitive skin with practiced movements before knotting it with a loop. 

“Are you scared?” Feitan asked, a muted glee in his voice. You stared at him, your eyes wide in pleading as you thought about where this was going. Silently begging him to spare you. He didn’t care. 

Feitan stood up, grabbing something with the loud clang of metal on metal. He moved faster than you could scramble away, grabbing your uselessly bound arms and pushing a hook through the loop. A hook attached to more rope, going to the ceiling, and- A pulley system. 

It was surprising, but more than that, it hurt, drawing a muffled shout of pain from your gagged mouth as he wrenched you up by your arms. You scrambled to get your feet beneath you, to find traction on the floor and ease the painful stress on your shoulders. He’d pulled you up high enough to be on your toes. Unstable as you tried to balance with your head still spinning.

Feitan didn’t wait for you to get your bearings, giving you only a small warning as he held up the shiny blade of a knife.

“Moving makes it hurt more,” he told you, his eyes rounded as your terror grew. You felt like you were about to choke on the emotion, that it was going to fill you until you suffocated.

There was no place to escape when Feitan caught you with one hand, using the other to cut through the fabric of your clothes. He obviously wasn’t concerned if he nicked your skin along the way, no matter how hard you tried to stay still. 

The air was cold against your mostly bared body, only adding to the misery and humiliation of the position he put you in, stripped down to your underwear and bleeding from the places the blade had carved into your skin. When Feitan pulled away the last of the fabric, he paused, his narrowed eyes running along your freshly revealed flesh. 

“So soft,” he said in an accusatory tone, running the tip of his knife down your neck, slowly trailing down to your chest with a light touch. You didn’t dare to move, barely daring to breathe with the weapon so close. “You’ve never been hurt...” Feitan’s eyes lifted to yours, tilting again with the hidden smile, “I’ll be your first.”

Those words gave you an awful sick feeling, heightening the horrifying discomfort of being trapped. Of being at his mercy while nearly naked and strung up. Almost without thought, you heard the muffled sounds of you trying to plead, to beg.

“You should save your tears,” he told you bluntly, cutting through the straps and front of your bra before moving to your underwear. Completely baring your body. You didn’t have the strength to look at Feitan. Unable to hide yourself or escape his gaze, you simply squeezed your eyes shut. 

“Are you shy?” he asked softly, his voice moving as he walked around you, “Your skin is very soft… Even here..” You nearly fell forward to get away when his hand ran over your exposed ass and the back of your thighs. A gentle touch, but one too intimate, too close. Too much. But your protesting was nothing but indistinct sounds.

He was still behind you, making you unable to see what he was doing, but you could hear him messing with something. What? What was it? You pushed down another sob, trying to prepare yourself for whatever he might do to you. 

“This is a fitting punishment for a cocky liar.”

Those words were the only warning before a slash of agonizingly hot pain slashed against your skin with the awful cracking sound of whip meeting flesh. You screamed, your entire body straining and pulling away before you could even try and balance again.

“Did that hurt?” Feitan asked with a soft derision, his hand going to softly pet the welt. You whimpered, but the noise was lost, deadened by the gag that had become heavy with tears and saliva. His fingers felt nice against the wound across your ass, not soothing, exactly. Something else. 

Your body was covered with chills and a thin layer of sweat, shaking in a way that threatened to throw you off balance at any moment. But, to your horror, it invited a different feeling within you.

The whip landed again, aimed below the first. Like a knife cutting into your skin, then irritated with an awful stinging burn seconds later. It didn’t push you around in the same way, but you weren’t braced for it, either. Your shoulders ached, your ass stung, and it was all you could do to keep your breathing even. Being whipped hurt. God, it hurt, but you still felt that something. That feeling, an unresolved tension as you head came down from the initial dizziness of being struck.

Feitan lowered the whip too quickly after the previous strike, not allowing you to stabilize the daze and rationalize the mess of sensations inside of you. The sound you made was loud enough to be heard despite the gag, a sound that wasn’t entirely created from the pain. 

A new panic welled up in your chest, a new fear. A new wave of shame and disgust. 

Walking around to your front, his whip held with a casual familiarity, Feitan looked up at you. He knew. The sadistic mockery dancing in his eyes made it clear that he understood what you felt. Holding eye contact, Feitan’s fingers found their way between your legs, seeking the wetness that was evidence of the pleasure you gained from this torture. Your hips jerked unconsciously at that slight touch, more tears falling down your cheeks in shame. 

“I’m impressed. True masochists are rare,” he said with a hint of something like praise, pulling away to brush past you. Just the minor touch of the fabric of his clothes had your bare, overly sensitive skin tingling.

Masochist. That word echoed in your mind, taunting and horrible. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to stop crying, trying to calm your silent, shuddering sobs. If you choked on the gag, you doubted that he’d take it off.

A sudden flash of pain across your bare thighs made you scream in a muffled voice, your eyes unintentionally snapping open. Each time he struck you with the whip, you couldn’t help but fall forward, your upper body taking more and more painful strain as your legs gave up underneath you. Although you’d tried to calm down, you were utterly unable to control the torrent of pained tears that came after he struck you. 

Right then, you hated yourself far more than the man behind you, because every time you felt that unbearable sting, your skin being marked by the impact of the whip, the wetness between your legs only seemed to become more insistant. The need for satisfaction was almost as bad as the agony of being whipped.

“You are shameless,” Feitan remarked. The whip landed again with a harsh strike of sound, the rush of pain and unwanted pleasure mixing together as you begged him to stop in an indecipherable babble from behind the gag.

Your breathing was quick, choked, and frenzied, the gag made it hard to get in a full lungful of air. The lack of oxygen added to the dizzying feeling of disorientation brought by pain, brought by desire, brought by the hated man who stood behind you, his actions unknown and the anticipation nearly killing you.

“Why are you crying? Doesn’t it feel good?” he mocked, landing three more strikes in quick succession. 

Your arms were dead, your legs trembling and close to giving out. It was pointless to try and rub your aching thighs together in an attempt for some sort of relief, but you couldn’t stop yourself, fresh tears surfacing at how painful it all felt when mixed together.

“If I take the gag off, will you beg for me to stop?” Feitan asked, speaking from behind you in an excited tone. The feeling of his breath on your neck sent chills down your entire sweat-slicked body, your nipples tightening in an unwelcome reminder of your desire and of your pain. 

Beg for him to stop. Maybe you should have been braver, but you longer had it in you, agreeing in a muffled voice.

He undid the knot holding the fabric in your mouth, pulling it free. 

You began speaking as soon as you were able, sounding every bit as shameless as he said you were, your words punctuated by the tightening of your diaphragm in gasping sobs.

“P-please… Fei-Feitan, I can’t take it any..more, please s-stop-”

Unexpectedly, Feitan whipped you again, the flash of pain making your ears ring as you cried out without the muffle of the gag, your body painfully straining against the bindings. You realized that the wetness running down your arms wasn’t sweat, but blood from where the ropes had worn through the skin. 

“Do better,” he said. You stiffened in fear, fighting off the newest wave of tears. You couldn’t breathe evenly, it was all you could do to try and think a complete rational thought that wasn’t overwhelmed by the physical sensations.

“Please stop, Fei-” 

Again, interrupting your words, the whip landed, this time at the very top of your thighs, where the skin was the most sensitive. You screamed, your body going limp before you got your shaking legs beneath you again, doing an odd dance on the tips of your toes as they brushed the cold cement floor. 

Your breathing was harsh and panicked. 

“Please, I’ll d-do any-thing,” you begged desperately, it was all you could think of at this point, everything in your world reduced down to the most base of physical feelings, the emotions nothing more than blood rushing loudly in your ears and the tears that hadn’t stopped.

Feitan circled you. He’d stripped down to his pants, his pale and muscular torso and face revealed to your eyes, but other than that seemed completely composed and neat. He smiled, his mouth finally visibly turning up with the expression.

“That’s enough,” he told you.

Before you could feel any particular way about those words, he reached up and released the loop that had been attached to the hook. Your body collapsed, both your legs and arms rendered useless by the position you’d been in.

Feitan caught you. He was warm. Truly and humanly warm. It was a nice balm to the clammy fever-heat you’d been burning with. The blood flowing back into your heavy arms hurt, but not nearly as bad as the flesh across your ass and thighs that had been decorated with disgustingly painful red slashes.

The half-embrace Feitan offered didn’t last long. 

When he pushed you onto the ground, your scream was probably deafening, a scream of true and absolute agony that brought black blots of pain to the edges of your vision. For a long moment, that pain across your backside was all you could feel, all you could think about, but Feitan was holding you still, pressing you into the cold ground while he knelt above, looking down at you with those delighted dark eyes.

“It’s disappointing how easily you give in to the pain. Do you not even care how weak you look? How pathetic? You should feel lucky that I’m in a good mood.”

“It hurts,” you cried, still trying to struggle to get the pressure off of your torn skin. 

“I don’t care. Hold still,” he told you. Breathing heavily, you obeyed, too afraid to struggle.

That changed when Feitan’s hand slipped between your legs, pushing your thighs apart enough to slide through the wet evidence of your arousal, ignoring the panicked grasping of your bound hands to stop him.

“Stop!” you said, your voice weakened by the screaming and crying into nothing more than a hoarse whimper.

“Why?” Feitan asked pitilessly.

He slid a finger into you easily. Your hips jumped unconsciously at the touch, bringing even more pain when your whipped skin made contact with the cold floor once more. There was nothing you could do to stop him, with your arms still encased in a constricting restraint of rope. 

“Please, it hurts,” you hissed, the only attainable volume you could use without your tears getting in the way.

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Feitan asked cruelly, adding another finger while looking you straight in the eye. Fresh tears slid down your face, but you still moaned when he rubbed your clit. It too confusing, too much, the conflicting sensory signals completely overwhelming your mind. 

Something flickered in his eyes at the sound, and only seconds later Feitan had you turned on your stomach. It saved your tender whipped skin, but hurt the rest of your useless and heavy body. At the least the floor was cold on your cheek. 

Feitan lifted your hips up, forcing you back onto your previously bruised knees with a soft sound of pain. 

“This is your place. Don’t forget that,” Feitan told you as his hand ran over your welt-covered ass, as if to sooth the wounds. A distraction, you realized too late. 

A hoarse and broken scream ripped from your throat when he entered you. It had been far too long since you’d last been with someone, and Feitan didn’t bother to go slow enough for your body to properly adjust. With every snap of his hips, he pushed your heavy and uncoordinated torso into the floor, the ropes on your forearms rubbing against your skin.

It hurt, God it hurt, your blood staining his skin whenever it hit your own. The counter to the pain was the pleasure of being fucked, the ultimate fulfillment to your bodies horrifying reaction to being hurt.

Both of these things made your breathing erratic, crying and moaning without any understanding of why. Air came in short supply, making everything that much more confusing as your brain begged for air and your body begged for release.

You desperately ached to come. That was the only thing that would fix you, that would make it right. But how could you want that from Feitan? This was wrong, this was humiliating, this was meant to hurt you, this was hot, scalding, burning. You wanted him to stop, to not hurt you anymore, to never have hurt you in the first place, but if he didn’t touch you soon you were certain you’d actually die.

“Fei-tan… Pl--ease,” you got out, voice cracking and muffled as it was pushed to the floor. 

He said something mockingly in a language you didn’t understand, his hands gripping your hips without mercy as increased his pace. It was too much to be able to cry out anymore, your mouth open in a silent scream as saliva and tears created a puddle beneath your face. It was too much to think, your mind consumed with pain and pleasure. It was too much, too much, too much.

Feitan spoke again, his voice more forced now as he spat out something with words you didn’t know. That tone was easy to recognize, though, something dark that you felt more than heard. Felt, because that was all that mattered anymore. Feeling and sensation. Pleasure and pain, but what was the difference anymore? You could feel yourself tensing around him, the agony finally giving away to a more familiar and true feeling of desire and need.

The nails of his right hand dug into your flesh, his other slipping underneath you to find your swollen clit, to rub against it with motions that were too hard and too fast. Perfect, somehow, in how horrible it really felt. Uncaring of the pain, seeking more, your back arched, changing the angle and the the place Feitan’s fingers were putting pressure on. 

And that was enough. Everything hurt, everything was uncomfortable, but when you felt that final push of stimulation, everything was perfect. You came with a feeling of breaking, release making you tense beneath Feitan as he sought his own orgasm in your still reeling body. It cleared your mind, cleansed you of the horrific stress of the things he’d done as you fully submitted to being used for his own end. 

He spoke again in that foreign language, exclaiming it almost angrily as he pulled out and finished onto the wounds on your ass. 

It hurt. Everything hurt as you came down from that high. That hurt most of all, perhaps. When Feitan pulled away, no longer supporting your hips, you slid to the floor. Either your eyes hadn’t been open or you closed them, it didn’t matter. Blackness was teasing the edges of your mind, inviting you into escaping your horrifying reality.

“Falling asleep already?” Feitan asked, sounding disappointed. Fading out. “Weak. Tomorrow, we will continue.”


	53. Yandere Chrollo Lucilfer Series

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this in four parts on my blog ( agent-cupcake.tumblr.com ) With four different yandere sentence starters

It was almost midnight and the weather was cold and foggy. You had a bad feeling, a terrible sense of foreboding that wasn’t helped at all by the eeriness of the empty park as you rushed down the sidewalk. Chrollo had called earlier, waking you up instantly when you heard how urgent his voice sounded, asking you to meet him at Embassy Park, at the bench where you’d first met. He hadn’t explained anything, promising to tell you in person.

You couldn’t say that your hands were shaking just from the cold, although it was bitingly chilly. More than that, you were scared. Scared because it was impossible to see even ten feet in front of you, and you doubted it was legal to be at the park so late. Scared because in the months that you’d been dating him, you’d never heard Chrollo sound so rattled.

He was a little strange, very strange, if you were being honest, but you trusted him. Chrollo had never done anything to hurt you, or anything to indicate he wasn’t trustworthy. He was the the best man you’d ever dated. So you forced yourself to be brave.

The air was so foggy that you didn’t even realize that you had reached the bench until it was only a few feet in front of you.

Chrollo wasn’t there. Saving you from the true panic of knowing you were alone was a black lump sitting where you usually would, a white card placed on top of it. You rushed over until you were able to make out your name written on the paper in Chrollo’s handwriting. Relief filled you at the sight.

Without even thinking about it, you grabbed the paper. Why should you have thought about it? It was only natural that you would, considering it had your name on it. The consequences for the simple action didn’t even cross your mind. It was heavier than you anticipated. No, not heavier. Held down by something. You didn’t think about this, either, tugging on the paper to free it with a jerky motion.

There were no dramatics, nothing happened in slow motion or theatrically. You flipped the card, reading the four horrifying words, and then the world broke. With a sound so oppressive it hurt, nearly knocking you down from shock, an explosion blasted away the fog, allowing you to clearly see as the Embassy building was engulfed in flame.

‘Dispose of the evidence’ the card said.

Sitting on top of the black lump of the duffle bag were a few carefully placed wires connected to some sort of device, connecting properly when you picked up the card. Your fault, then. Causation, not correlation. This couldn’t be real.

You blinked quickly, tears in your eyes, although the smoke wasn’t quite thick enough to warrant them just yet. The bright orange and red flames created a beacon of light from across the waterway separating the park from the building, the screaming an afterthought to your still-ringing ears.

Dispose of the evidence.

Some part of your mind already understood, and was already pushing past the despair. You had been framed, but right now you had to run. Dispose of the evidence. You wiped at your face with rough movements, breathing fast and hands shaking as you unzipped the bag to shove in the trigger switch and card. Inside you saw the gleam of metal and wires, a scent of sulfur hitting you. A sob, or perhaps a laugh, left your mouth at the sight. How comically messed up this was, how fast it had all happened.

Before your mind could stop your body with its endless twisting of circular and panicked thoughts, you were running through the park with the bag slung on your back, hyperventilating as you considered what you could possibly do to get away from the authorities. No, not just the authorities, two countries worth of military. If you were found, it would certainly mean death.

You tripped on the slick grass, ripping both the fabric and skin of your knee, but it didn’t hurt. All that mattered was to get away, as far away as possible from that light, from the screaming of sirens and the deaths that you had accidentally caused.

That was a mistake. Of course they’d be looking for the culprit making a mad dash from the probable scene of the crime. Of course, it was obvious, but you didn’t see until it was too late.

See? You saw guns, weapons made of murderous intent and sleek metal shining orange in the still burning horror behind you. Shouting, shouting, the men holding the guns shouted to your deadened ears and slipping mind.

“Get down, put your hands on your head!”

It wasn’t real. It couldn’t possibly be. The thud as you hit the ground on your stomach from the violent attack of one of the men and the breath-taking pain following was imagined. The bag (dispose of the evidence) was ripped from you, the cold muzzle of a gun pressed to your head.

Was that you? Whimpering and crying like a child, shaking on the ground without even trying to think of a way to convince these guns of your innocence?

They were shouting again. You tried to listen past the ringing in your ears, past the part of yourself that screamed it wasn’t real. Certainly the scent of wet grass and soil was real enough to make a convincing argument, the pain on your chin and knee something that couldn’t be thought into existence.

It wasn’t shouting anymore, but screaming. Screaming? Terror. The cold bite of metal left your skin.

Turning your head, you saw the gunless men, laying on the ground with staring eyes and fearful expressions, bodies limp. Dead.

“Are you hurt?” someone asked from above. A voice you knew. Your subconscious reacted with a feeling of relief and hope before your sluggish thoughts could catch up, recognizing Chrollo’s lovely voice on a nearly instinctual level. You closed your eyes to the dead, cringing away from them as reality crashed in, sitting up to wrap your arms around yourself and seeking the familiar by focusing on him.

For a moment, it was enough to see his face a know that he was here, that you were saved.

“We have to leave quickly,” he told you with an unquestionable authority, a hard tone. He was wearing a strange coat, a black trench with fur detailing on the cuffs. Chrollo looked intimidating. Chrollo looked frightening. Chrollo had killed the men that you didn’t dare look at now in a matter of seconds. Chrollo had…

He had set you up. That was the obvious conclusion. The truth. You could feel it as clearly as you felt the bile rising in your throat.  

“You-” you choked on the word, your voice cracked and thick with the tears you didn’t remember shedding, “Y-you set me up,” you accused weakly. Chrollo’s eyes narrowed slightly, the only change of expression.

“I did,” he admitted openly, no hint of shame in his voice, “And if they find you now, you’ll be killed.”

“Why?” you asked, the only reasonable question. None of this made any sense.

“Isn’t it obvious? I love you,” he responded without hesitation, “But we don’t have time to talk. Get up.”

“No,” you said. Illogical, stupid, emotional, betrayed. You felt the pain of his words like a stab to your heart.

“If I have to force you, I can’t promise I’ll be gentle. I’d hate to hurt you, but it’s for your own good. You’ve seen how dangerous other people can be.”

 

* * *

 

 

Shock saw you through the night, through the long car ride done with three vehicle changes and a woman you’d never met behind the wheel. Chrollo sat with you in the backseat,  speaking with her in that dark and serious voice you’d never heard before tonight. You listened in as best as you could, but In the aftermath of the explosion and terror that followed, all your mind truly wanted was to shut down. To refuse the emotional responsibility that came with what amounted to the end of your life.

You were dozing, caught in the twilight state between your nightmarish reality and the alluring safety of sleep, when the car came to a final stop. The driver door opened and shut, leaving you alone with him.

“Are you awake?” Chrollo asked in the silence, his voice back to a more familiar and soft tone. Why -how?- could that sound still bring you relief? As badly as you wanted to keep your eyes closed, continue to block everything out and live in the bliss of ignorance, you forced yourself to fully wake up. You needed to move on and figure out a way out of this horrible mess. Not that it was easy to open your eyes and face him in full.

While you were certain that you looked like a puffy and red mess, Chrollo didn’t look tired in the slightest, lacking any signs of him being affected by the night. More than that, he looked fairly normal. During the night, when you’d been nearly vibrating from how hard you’d been shaking, he’d leant you his heavy black trench, leaving him in a reasonable high necked black shirt. You couldn’t be sure if it was better or worse that he didn’t look like the villain you now knew he was.

“What’s happening?” you asked in a groggy and cracked voice, forcing yourself to look him in the eye.

“It’s dangerous for you to stay here. I’m taking you home,” Chrollo replied, turning to open the door and slide from the car. Like a gentleman, he offered you his hand to do the same.

You considered refusing, but the night had left a toll on you and exhaustion was a heavy burden on your limbs, so you accepted his help, pulling away as if his touch had poisoned you the moment you were stable. His coat was even heavier when you were trying to stand underneath it, and the hem nearly reached the ground with how over-sized it was for you, but you were glad to have it as a shield against the early morning chill.

The sun was rising, an orange and red beauty on the horizon, brightening an unfamiliar empty and expansive field. At first you didn’t understand, but it all came together when you turned and your eyes landed on an airship. An expensive luxury model, not the type you’d see at any airport, sitting all alone on this private runway.

“Danchou!” a voice called while you were still caught staring at the ship, your tired mind whirling to get a handle on what this meant.

“Shalnark. Is everything ready?” Chrollo asked as the man who had called for him approached. You turned, eyes landing on a smiling blond man and the woman who’d been driving behind him.

“Yep!” Shalnark replied cheerfully, “Pakunoda told me everything went well with the bomb? I wish I could have seen it…” he sighed, a childish sort of regret, but recovered quickly, his sea green eyes focusing on you, “Oh? You’re the one who triggered it, right? What did you think?”

While you stared at Shalnark in shock, horrified that he’d so happily speak about such a terrible act, Chrollo stepped in front of you.

“It’s been a long night. She’s very tired,” he responded for you, saving you from having to think of an answer. You hated the rush of gratitude you felt for him. “Pakunoda, you’re staying here?” Chrollo asked.

“Yes. I have business nearby,” Pakunoda responded.

“Farewell, then,” Chrollo said, a distinctive warmth in his voice.

“It was nice to see you, Pakunoda,” Shalnark added.

“And you,” she responded, “Goodbye.”

“Come on,” Chrollo said to you, leading you away from the car, towards the airship. You swallowed hard, hesitating, but you had no other options.

“Where is ‘home’?” you asked Chrollo as you hurried to match his pace. Shalnark led the way, climbing up the steps first and leaving you and Chrollo almost completely alone once you heard the car peeling from the lot behind you.

“‘Home’… That might be the wrong word…” Chrollo mused, thinking about it for a moment before actually answering. “We’re going to Meteor City.”

Meteor City. You recognized the name, and the bad things associated with the place. More than that, it was far away.

“No,” you said, stopping in your tracks, looking at Chrollo with wide eyes, your heart pounding in your chest. Shock had seen you through the night, but now it was all coming back. Hitting you hard. He paused when he realized, turning back to look at you with his piercing gray eyes and impassive expression. “I don’t know why you did this… I don’t… But I won’t go anywhere with you.”

Chrollo turned to face you in full wordlessly, retracing a few slow steps until he stood in front of you, forcing you to look up at him.  
  
“Do you understand the severity of your situation?” he asked gently.

“What?” you asked, resisting the urge to take a step back. His eyes flashed, a strange expression. Unnerving and unfamiliar.

“You killed a foreign ambassador and his group of diplomatic guests, as well as several dozen others. Today was meant to be a pivotal moment in finalizing an important and financially lucrative deal for both countries. To say that the damage done is catastrophic is an understatement.”

“But I didn’t do it!” you said, tears burning at your eyes, your tone shrill with panic. That wasn’t entirely true, though. If you hadn’t picked up that card, if you hadn’t gone to that park, if you hadn’t fallen in love with him, this wouldn’t be happening.

“There’s too much evidence to the contrary for that argument to work. You have a Class B bounty on your head and the entirety of two countries calling for your death. Every news outlet is broadcasting your full name and face,” Chrollo explained in the same gentle and soft tone.

“Oh my god,” you choked out, a fresh horror sinking in your stomach. You took a few steps away from him as you dug beneath his trench to find your own coat pocket and pull out your phone.

“What are you doing?” Chrollo asked.

“I have to tell my parents!” But it was early, they wouldn’t be awake. Then you thought of your best friend, he’d certainly be awake for work. “I need to call Benny, he can’t think that I-”

“Give me your phone,” Chrollo interrupted, his voice low. You looked up, Benny’s number half typed in.

“You can’t be serious,” you replied in hurt disbelief, meeting his unreadable eyes.

“Give me your phone, or I’ll kill him,” Chrollo said, no specific sort of anger or threat in his voice. He’d met Benny before, talked and laughed with him. But right then, you didn’t doubt that Chrollo meant what he said.

“Why?” you asked. Would you ever stop asking that? Could he explain his motives in a way that would make any sense of this situation? Slowly, you handed over your phone.

Chrollo broke it with one hand while looking you in the eye, dropping the useless pieces to the ground.

“It’s better if they all think you’re a criminal,” Chrollo told you, “Anyone trying to get in between you and me will die.”

 

* * *

 

 

The airship was just as nice on the inside as it was on the outside, if not more. After pointing to the food and clean clothes he’d gotten for both you and Chrollo, Shalnark happily volunteered to stay up in the cockpit. Meaning, he was leaving you alone with Chrollo for the fourteen hour journey fresh off the heels of the man threatening to kill everyone you loved.

Getting worked up about it simply wasn’t possibly anymore, though. You were tired, wrung out, and pushed past any limit you’d have imagined yourself capable of. After eating and gratefully changing from your dirty clothes into an outfit that mostly fit, Chrollo told you get some rest.

Being able to to sleep here, now, showed a distinct lack of strength on your end, but what else could you do? You weren’t some action heroine with an iron will and a big plan to outsmart the bad guy, you were the type of girl who needed at least eight hours of sleep to be functional and still couldn’t watch the beginning of Pixar’s Up without crying.

So you laid on the daybed with your back to Chrollo and closed your eyes, letting the void of sleep set the world to rights for at least a few hours. Nine of them, exactly.

You woke up in a panic, floundering around as you tried to figure out where you were and what was happening. Remembering didn’t happen slowly, rather, everything just sort of hit at once. Dazed from sleep and the relatively comfortable atmosphere of the airship, you felt rather numb about it. When you sat up to stretch and try to shake off the weird dizziness of unconsciousness that still clung to your thoughts, Chrollo looked up from his book.

It occured to you that you didn’t think you’d ever seen him sleep.

“How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Fine,” you replied, standing up and going to sit on the couch across from him. When you sat, Chrollo pushed a bottle of water over to you, which you accepted wordlessly. It was nice and cool, soothing your dry mouth and throat as well as helping you wake up.

Getting some rest made it easier to think about things and consider your situation in a less emotional way, although you knew the calm could crack at any moment into an outburst of panic. That only meant you needed to question him now.

“Why did you blow up the embassy?” you asked suddenly, quietly, staring down at the table instead of having to look at Chrollo. Thinking past your little bubble of personal tragedy, the fact remained that it took a lot of effort, planning, and skill to commit a crime of such a large scale. Framing you was probably the easiest part, considering you made yourself such a perfect little doe-eyed dupe. “It couldn’t possibly be just… just because of me.”

“You’re right,” Chrollo agreed, setting his book aside, “To put it plainly, we blew up the embassy to stop the trade deal from going through. The plan was in motion long before I met you. I suppose you could say that you were a… nice surprise,” he said, something warm in his voice. You didn’t like that, and you especially didn’t like the strange butterflies he still gave you.

“Why would you want to stop the trade deal?” you questioned, eyes rising slightly to peek at him through your lashes. Then your lips pursed in a callow frown, new questions rising before you could stop yourself, “Are you a terrorist, Chrollo?” you asked immaturely, “Is that why?”

The childish words only made Chrollo laugh, a genuinely humorous sound.

“Not precisely, unless you’re taking the word by the strictest definition. I told you about the Phantom Troupe, once. Do you remember?” he asked. The abrupt change of subject threw you off balance, and at first you wanted to press further about the embassy. But, that ran the risk of him not answering any questions, and unless you could get more information, you wouldn’t know anything.

So you thought, staring at the faux wood grain of the tabletop. Phantom Troupe. Your eyebrows furrowed, brain chugging away as you tried to remember your life before now, before this. A time when Chrollo was nothing more than who you believed to be the perfect boyfriend. Although you were inclined to give up and tell him to answer you directly, you forced yourself to remember on your own.

“They’re a group of criminals,” you finally said, looking up in victory as the name clicked with the memory, “Thieves, right?”

Chrollo smiled fondly, as if he were proud that you’d recalled that information. You frowned, looking back at the table and avoiding his stare.

“What does that have to do with anything?” you asked, your voice back to the petulant mumble.

“It has to do with everything,” Chrollo told you patiently, “Like me, the Phantom Troupe originated in Meteor City… Earlier, I mentioned that ‘home’ was the wrong word for the place. More accurately, it’s an undeniable part of who I am. The Phantom Troupe carries that weight as well, as with every person taken in by the city.”

A chill ran down your spine.

“What are you saying?” you asked.

“We are, first and foremost, a band of thieves who steal anything we desire. But, we can’t abandon our roots. The trade deal the ambassador had been sent to finalize specifically outlined an exchange of weapons that, until now, had been provided by Meteor City. Today, the leaders of both countries will receive a very clear message from the Phantom Troupe ‘We reject no one, so take nothing from us.’,” Chrollo wore a half smile, “A calling card, if you will.”

No longer could you keep your eyes averted, hardly even caring that you were meeting Chrollo’s piercing gaze as your thoughts were sent into a fresh whirl of information.

“So you’re…”

“The head of the Spider. The leader of the Phantom Troupe,” Chrollo finished for you, without any trace of hesitation.

“If they know that the Phantom Troupe is behind the bombing….. I’ll be exonerated,” you said, something like excitement stirring within you.

Chrollo’s pitying smile made you freeze.

“The evidence will show that you were acting in aid of the Phantom Troupe. If anything, I imagine your bounty will be raised,” he said gently, as if you were a child.

You slumped, despair hitting you anew in the seconds after that burst of hope. Tears you were probably too dehydrated to shed welled up. You didn’t want Chrollo to see you crying anymore, so you put your arms on the table, burying your face in them.

There was no sound to indicate Chrollo had moved, nothing to warn you about what he was doing until his arm was around you, pulling you away from the table and into his chest.

The feeling that clenched your heart and swelled up in your throat wasn’t anger, exactly, more like a reflex of panic that had you flailing and pushing away from him, struggling to get away even as sobs distorted your body.

“Stop!” you shouted in congested voice, “Get ah-off of me-e!”

Chrollo watched your futile efforts of fighting against him with a controlled expression, his eyebrows furrowed in the slightest way as he easily collected you back against him. Fighting was hard, made harder because every time you inhaled you could smell him, a scent so familiar and comforting to you it physically weakened your limbs.

He’d ruined you, destroyed you, killed you in every way but physically, so you struggled. It didn’t matter, it was all pointless, but you struggled.

“If you won’t stay still,” Chrollo finally told you in a soft voice, petting your hair in a tender way to contradict the violence you were pushing against him with, “I’ll tie you down.”

A horrible and choked wail left your mouth, muffled by his chest, but that threat made you fall still. Chrollo easily pulled you up and into his lap, letting you curl against him as you often had before this nightmare.

“At first I saw you as nothing more than something to pass the time. I intended only to use you in making my actions and movements more natural,” Chrollo told you in that same light and sweet voice, holding you in place as your body shook with the crying you couldn’t stop.

“I only realized you were anything more to me when I noticed the way your eyes lit up so brilliantly with genuine interest in things anyone else might overlook. Even after you were gone, I found myself thinking of how infectious your enthusiasm and heart were. I looked forward to seeing you.

“It’s as if you’re overflowing with life… You’ll share that with me, won’t you? Even now, I don’t mind your despair and pain,” Chrollo laughed, a soft sound that reverberated against your cheek, “That’s what love is, isn’t it? And I do love you, somehow. You’re one of the most precious treasures I’ve ever stolen.”

 

* * *

 

 

The sun was falling when the airship touched ground. Hanging low as you looked out the window and saw Meteor City for the first time. It was miles away yet, but you could still see it outlined clearly in gold with the falling light behind it. It was nothing like any city you’d ever seen, lacking the structure of tall buildings, or any structure at all.

Seeing it, feeling the reality of being forced to come to a place you didn’t want to be with a person you certainly didn’t want to be with, was another stresser on the long line of horrors you’d been subjected to just today. It was making you desperate. Somehow, you knew that the second you stepped off of this airship, you were submitting to the fate Chrollo had spent the last few hours laying out for you, cradling you like a child in the once-safe confines of his arms.

That absolutely could not happen. It was the desperation his words had filled you with that created a new plan, the awful words you’d been preparing because you had nothing else.

Shalnark came from the cockpit, surprising you with a body he had slung over his shoulder.

“Who’s that?” you asked in surprise horror. Was the man dead? You couldn’t tell, the only dead men you’d ever seen in real life had been-

“The pilot. I don’t need him anymore, I can fly us out,” Shalnark replied cheerfully, taking you from the sudden sensory onslaught.

“Good. I don’t want to stay long,” Chrollo replied, standing up.

“I figured as much,” Shalnark said, carrying on casually as if he weren’t lugging around what you could now only assume was a corpse, “Well, I’ve got to take care of this. I’ll meet you there.” With that, Shalnark opened the door, exiting quickly before shutting it behind him. Even that brief exposure allowed some of the smell to waft in. Hot trash and dead things, just the bared whiff was enough to make you want to gag.

Chrollo chuckled at the way your expression twisted in distaste.

“You’ll grow used to the smell quickly. It’s not toxic,” he soothed, as if that was what you were worried about, “And afterwards we can go somewhere nicer,” Chrollo’s lips quirked, “A honeymoon, of sorts.”

Your stomach twisted. When Chrollo began to walk away, to get to the door, you realized that you had no choice. It didn’t matter how unhappy it made you to do this, how scared you were to lie to him, even now. It didn’t matter, because you couldn’t allow this to happen.

“No,” you said firmly, standing up quickly and grabbing his hand to stop him, “The next place you’re taking me is home. And then you’re going to find a way for me to prove that I was framed,” you told him, meeting his momentarily surprised grey eyes before they shut you out, his expression becoming unreadable.

“Oh?” Chrollo asked, turning to stand close to you. His proximity shouldn’t have affected you anymore, but you couldn’t help the way it made you want to back away. “Why would I do that?” He sounded only mildly curious, not overtly threatening. Still, it was nearly enough to intimidate you into giving in.

But you couldn’t.

“Because you love me,” you told him, heart pounding and blood rushing through your ears in a dull roar. Using his emotions against him, even though he had done the same to you, was painful. You were not like Chrollo. You were weak and soft. Despite that, you readied your next words. Already, they tasted like acid on your tongue. “A-and because I want to be able to love you. The real you. But unless you undo what you’ve done, I… I don’t think I can”

This had to work. There was nothing else you could think of to try now, no other weakness Chrollo had ever shown that you thought you could exploit. So you held his gaze with all the fragile strength you had and prayed. Prayed to any and every god there might have been in the hopes that he would believe you.

“Amazing,” Chrollo said sweetly, raising a hand to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. It was intimate, sweet, frightening. “Normally you’re a very bad liar… But, that wasn’t entirely a lie, was it? I almost believed you for a second,” he sounded pleased.

“It’s not a lie, Chrollo,” you insisted, your voice quiet to hide the way it threatened to tremble, “I decided and I… I think I would say yes, if you just asked me. I think I can forgive you for this.”

Chrollo didn’t react, looking down at you with an incomprehensible expression. It took everything in you to remain steady with him so close, with the tension of your clumsy manipulation hanging in the air.

“I see it in your eyes the most,” he finally said in a soft tone, “You’re everything that I’m not,” Chrollo’s lips twitched, then settled into an enigmatic half smile, “It’s like you were made for me.”

“Does that mean you’ll do it?” you asked quietly, foolish hope swelling in your heart.

“No,” Chrollo said gently, stabbing you with the single word, “I am curious, though, what would you have done after I helped you?”

Your mouth opened mutely, but there was nothing to say. You’d played your hand and lost. Now you knew, there was no victory you could possibly score against Chrollo. That was reality. As if to add insult to injury, Chrollo laughed at your inability to answer, pulling you even closer to him.

“I see,” he said, not dropping his smile, “It’s better that you have someone to take care of you, I think. The world is a dangerous place for something so precious,” Chrollo said, the irony of his statement adding a heavy humor to his tone.

Being so close to him was becoming impossible to handle. You had lost, lost everything and everyone in your life. In your eyes, you’d even lost the man you loved. He had been a lie, sure, but that didn’t stop your heart from breaking for him.

Desperate in the way wild animals became when cornered, you tried to force yourself out of his grip, to gain some space. Chrollo’s hands only held harder, his fingers digging into you, one on your hip and the other pulling your hair to keep your face up towards his. It made you yelp, a hushed and pathetic sound.

“But I’ll protect you…” Chrollo began lightly. The corner of his mouth twitched, “…On one condition.”

“You’re kidding,” you whispered. At this point, disbelief was truly laughable, but you felt it all the same. Conditional safety from a danger he put you in was, comparatively, not that bad. Only someone as stupid as you seemed to be would be shocked by this new cruelty.

“You didn’t think you’d get something for nothing, did you?” Chrollo asked sweetly, “Unless you’re able to steal the things you desire, everything has a price… Isn’t that the world you live in?” Meeting his unreadable eyes, you tried to understand the deeper meaning in the cruel humor of his question. Steal the things you desired, like he did. But you weren’t like Chrollo, he’d said so himself.

“What rules?” you finally asked.

“Don’t worry,” Chrollo replied warmly, “It’s easy enough. In order to keep you safe, I need your loyalty and obedience. Love is built on trust, isn’t it? Trust that I have your best interests at heart. I’d hate for something terrible to happen to you.”

“But if I disobey, you’ll abandon me,” you said, keeping your voice flat to force down the burn of emotion rising in your throat. Chrollo’s expression sobered up, becoming serious at your assessment.  

“The punishment will vary depending on what you’ve done,” he responded.

“Punishment?” you asked, repeating the word with obvious distaste. Punishment, like you were a misbehaving child or pet. Treasure was the word Chrollo had used for you, so maybe those things weren’t so far off.

“Yes. After all, that’s how you train good behavior,” Chrollo responded easily. His eyes flicked up, looking at the wall behind you, “We have some time… I could show you what I mean.”

You tensed when his wide eyes dropped to yours, as if it was an offer. As if you had any control over any of this.

“Punish me for what?” you asked miserably. His eyes flashed.

“It was a brave effort, but I can’t ignore that you attempted to manipulate me.”

You swallowed hard, heart speeding up at the reminder of your failed and desperate attempt at manipulation.

“You can’t,” you said hoarsely, biting down the awful question of how much would be enough until he was tired of tormenting you. How much more could you take.

“Of course I can,” Chrollo refuted easily, “If I don’t set boundaries, you’re certain to cross them. It’s better to start now to avoid problems in the future.”

“I’m sorry…” you trailed off miserably, hands raising to grasp at his arms. You couldn’t take anymore, but you had no doubts that he wouldn’t buy that. Chrollo raised an eyebrow.

“If you were truly sorry, you would accept your punishment,” he told you with a bite of amused derision. You had no answer to that, mouth opening and closing to find an argument in your twisting thoughts. “Prove to me that I can trust you to do as I say,” Chrollo pushed, a warning that even you could understand.

Meeting his eyes for an extended silence, hoping that he’d give in, take pity on you, you found nothing. No warmth, no affection. Empty. You looked down, avoiding that look.

“Fine,” you agreed quietly.

“Bend over the table,” Chrollo said, releasing you to do as he said. Heat flushed through you at his order. He couldn’t possibly mean that ‘punishment’ was sex, that was a wholly separate sort of cruelty. But, what choice did you have? Woodenly, you did as he said, looking down at the wood grain you were now oh-so familiar with with your hands clenched into tight fists and your elbows braced.

Chrollo pushed your ill-fitted elastic pants and underwear from your hips, exposing you. You squeezed your eyes shut, breathing fast and shallow. The two of you had only began sleeping together recently, and now-

“Tonight I’ll use my hand,” Chrollo told you, his palm rubbing over the skin of your ass and upper thighs, making you tense even further, “Next time, I’ll use a belt.”

Belt?

“Chrollo-” you began, peeking back at him. Then his hand landed, and you realized what ‘punishment’ meant.

You cried out as you pushed yourself more into the table, trying to get away from the stinging pain. It hurt, it was surprising, but it was also terribly embarrassing. Parents spanked naughty children, not…

Chrollo grabbed the bottom of your shirt, pulling you back in position for his hand to strike your skin again. This time, you muffled yourself by pressing your mouth against your arm, legs shaking.

“How nice…” Chrollo muttered, gently rubbing the tender flesh, “Your skin looks especially lovely like this.” His hand landed again, the cabin of the ship filling with the awful sound of skin striking skin and your muffled sobs as a feeling like fire crawled across your ass and thighs, an uniquely painful stinging sensation.

“Please stop,” you whimpered when Chrollo paused in his assault, gently rubbing the heated skin.

“Are you sorry?” he asked.

“Yes,” you said. To your horror, instead of hitting you again, his fingers lowered between your legs. The pain was undeniable, the misery you’d been subjected to was impossible to discount, but your body didn’t care. You were wet, you could both feel it and hear it as Chrollo ran his fingers through your folds, making your hips jump.

“Sorry for what?” Chrollo prompted in the same cool tone, his unwanted touch making you tremble. You were certain that this would be the thing to make you break, absolutely certain that your traitorous reaction to this agony and anguish could be enough to send you over the edge. Because you were weak, because you were moving against his fingers. “Sorry for what?” Chrollo prompted again, pulling away.

The whine that left your mouth wasn’t out of pain, an entirely different type of distress finding traction in your over-burdened mind making itself known.

“For lying and t-trying to… Manipulate you,” you said in a new tone of desperation, “I’m sorry.”

A moment passed of tense fear and the sound of your panicked breathing, but you didn’t dare look back at Chrollo, staying completely still as you waited for his reply.

“I forgive you,” Chrollo finally accepted, dropping his fingers to your swollen clit again, dragging the wetness up to make it easier, a warm and wonderful feeling. A horrid sensation. Pleasure wasn’t lurking far beneath the surface, now, dragged from your tumultuous thoughts in reaction to his quick and skilled movements.

“Relax,” Chrollo said in a soft voice. The voice of your beloved, a different man your lust hazed brain could accept as a reality. Of course you let yourself do as he said, to give in to the stimulation and let it heal you for the moment. You were going to come, ignoring all logic and reason and pain and suffering, you were going to come from Chrollo’s touch because you loved him and it didn’t matter which part you loved anymore because you were a fool and fools could still love the ones that hurt and tormented them.

Release built the way your tears did, a hot swell and coil, impossible to fight as it made your entire body tense. The sounds you made were muffled against your arms, sounds that couldn’t, even by the loosest sense, be called cries of pain. Moaning. Moaning for him, his name a jumbled plea on your lips because it was easier this way, it was easier to ignore how wrong this all was and arch your back to give Chrollo a better angle to touch you. Touch you, love you, hurt you, what did any of it matter? Your orgasm hit you all the same, blurring the reality the way you truly wanted and limiting your mind to focus only on the stimulation, on the way you were actively grinding against Chrollo’s fingers until the very last second of orgasm because you knew the world would hurt you the second you came down.

And it did. Chrollo pulled away when he was sure you were done, leaning down to pull your pants back up like some sort of bastardized gentleman. Before you could move up on your own, before self-loathing could consume you in whole, Chrollo pulled you up and turned you around.

It happened too fast for you to get your bearings while still coming down from the high of your orgasm. Chrollo’s lips were on yours, holding you against him the way a lover might, prompting you to open your lips and accept his tongue the way a lover would. Gently, gently, and sweet enough to empty your mind all over again, Chrollo stole your breath away with a kiss to remind you of when things were normal, what happiness and fulfillment felt like within you. Your hands rose of their own volition to tangle in his soft hair, your body melting against his.

Too soon the moment ended, the kiss breaking to allow the both of you to breathe. In the void of sensation afterwards, the combination of pain, despair, and desire reminded you of what life was for you now. Still, you clung to Chrollo, breathing heavy and letting your forehead drop against his shoulder. Because you weren’t strong. Because the pain was overwhelming but so was the pleasure. Because maybe, just maybe, it was better to just allow him to do as he wanted.

“Why?” you murmured, a whimpery word without any blame or anger, carrying nothing but the plaintive confusion of the scared child this depthless tumble into ruin had brought out inside you.

“I’ve told you… Should I say it again?” Chrollo asked, humoring you softly, “It’s because I love you.” 


	54. Pariston Hill + Maid

There was nothing quite like the anxiety of being called into your superior’s office -not your boss’ office, he was  _not_  your boss- without any warning. The afternoon, until that point, had been fairly productive. You were tired, of course, but when were you not? Working two jobs had taken its toll on you. Still, when you received the message to go to the Vice Chairman’s office, you snapped wide awake.

Since starting at the Association, working from the bottom rung of the latter by doing the work the more important Hunter’s didn’t want to, your only major interactions with Pariston Hill had been in passing. You’d never spoken alone with him, and as you made your way to his office you had no idea what to expect. 

Your hands were shaking as you knocked on his office door, when he called you in and you had to make the uncomfortably long walk to his desk under the discomforting burn of his eyes.

“You called for me?” you asked with as professional of a voice you could manage, standing awkwardly before him as your mind whirled with the many possible reasons he might have called for you. Pariston smiled.

“Yes, yes, I hope you weren’t too busy,” he said with his unshakable energy, “Oh, please sit down.” Pariston motioned to the chair in front of his desk, which you took with stiff posture, back straight and heart pounding.

Pariston had his hands folded beneath his chin, looking across his desk at you with a smile that seemed friendly. He always seemed friendly.

“Do you know why I called you in today?” Pariston asked in a voice just as friendly as his smile. Your heart plummeted.

“No, sir,” you responded, your voice thin with nerves.

Pariston Hill wasn’t your boss, and he didn’t have the complete authority to just fire you, but to hear those words coming from him was a very dangerous thing. Everyone knew he pretty much controlled the Association since the other Zodiacs and the Chairman didn’t care to waste their time with the business side of the Hunter Association.

Pariston hummed, his smile not dropping as he slid a folder across the empty surface of his desk.

“Well, you know that image is very important to the Association,” he told you, pulling something out, “Without the trust and support of the public, the Hunter Association would certainly fall apart!”

“I understand,” you said, a sick feeling in your stomach and your eyes trained on what he was holding.

“Good!” Pariston exclaimed, laying out possibly the worst thing you’d ever seen. Printouts of your side job’s company headshots. A maid cleaning service. He had all the photos, pictures of you in your maid uniform and various ‘cute’ poses lined up beneath Pariston Hill’s smile. “So you understand that any Hunter’s on this floor must be above reproach, anyone working so closely with the Zodiacs is under close scrutiny.”

Pariston, to your discomfort, didn’t sound angry. He still wore a slight smile, putting his chin back on his folded hands with his gaze not straying from your undoubtedly flustered expression. You wanted to ask him how he’d found you, considering your true identity wasn’t revealed anywhere on the company website, and that most people would likely not recognize you upon first look, but that was unimportant now.

“It’s not against Association regulation for me to have a part time job elsewhere,” you finally found the voice to tell him, “And I’m not doing anything illegal, the company I work for is very reputable. Strictly a cleaning service,” you met his eyes, trying with all you had to convince him. No, you couldn’t technically be fired over this, but if it got out, it could end your career anyway.

“Is that true?” Pariston asked curiously, “That’s not the only reason I thought to bring this up. You see, as someone who occasionally works so closely to me, I can’t stand the thought that you’re desperate enough to have resorted to doing something  _amoral_.”

Amoral? Although you hadn’t been working here too long, you already knew that there wasn’t much morality to be found in a lot of Hunter work.

“I am paid for my service as a maid, and that is the only thing I will provide. The costume is only a gimmick,” you told him. And it was true. Some men paid quite a lot just to watch a cute girl in a maid costume clean their homes and call them master. Exhausting and maybe a bit skeezy, but ultimately harmless. If he had seen the website, he’d learn that the service would be canceled without refund if there was even an attempt at inappropriate touching or illegal propositions.

“It’s not affecting my work, either, Mr Hill. If you check, I’m sure you’ll find that my work ethic and results are above reproach,” you added, trying not to sound desperate. You’d only began doing the maid service to supplement your Association job as you tried to work your way up, but it wasn’t sustainable, you had every intention to leave when you were able.

Pariston laughed it off casually, breaking the tension and making you wince.

“If that’s the case, then I have no need to worry, do I?” he asked, “But-” Pariston’s smile dropped into a more serious expression, his hands falling flat to the desk, “-Shouldn’t  _you_  be concerned? I’d can only imagine what some of my  _less understanding_  colleagues might think if they saw these pictures. _I_ believe that it’s legal… but not everyone is as nice as I am.”

“How would they find out?” you asked in a tone of measured anxiety, a painful pressure swelling in your chest, “You won’t tell anybody, will you, Mr Hill?”

A beat of silence stretched a bit too long, his sparkling brown eyes drinking in your expression while you barely dared to breathe. Finally, Pariston reacted, waving his hands as if to physically dispel your question.

“No, no, of course I won’t!” he denied enthusiastically, “And in return… Perhaps you wouldn’t mind doing me a favor,” he said, his voice becoming quiet as his previous energy disappeared. Your stricken expression must have been embarrassingly obvious, because he quickly added, “Don’t look so scared! You’re free to decline if you feel it’s unfair. I had no intention of  _forcing_  you into anything.”

Blackmail. This was blackmail. You had to swallow hard against the rising bile in your throat to find it within yourself to answer.

“What favor?” you asked, embarrassingly choked. Pariston’s smile only grew at your easy compliance.

“You see, I’ve been looking for a maid. And since it’s your job anyway… Well, it all works out, doesn’t it?” he asked. 

Surprise broke you out of your horrified stupor.

“You’d like to hire me as…” you trailed off.

“A maid, yes. That’s not too bad, is it?” he asked, speaking as if the idea wasn’t almost too humiliating for you to even consider.

“That’s all?” you verified.

“Eh? Is that so surprising?” Pariston asked.

“It’s just… You don’t seem like the type to hire a maid service,” you finally got out. The men who hired you were… not anything like Pariston Hill.

“Really?” he asked innocently, “What favor did you expect I’d ask for?”

How could he possibly seem so genuine when he knew full well what you had assumed?

“I don’t know, but… I’ll do it,” you agreed despite the screeching of warning bells, “And after that, you swear to not tell anybody?” you asked, meeting his gaze with a pleading look.

“I already told you I would,” Pariston said with a vague and innocent confusion, gathering up your pictures and putting them back in the folder. You let out a heavy breath, standing up to take your much anticipated leave.

“Oh!” Pariston exclaimed, grabbing a pen and one of his cards, “This is my address. I’ll see you tonight… At six, perhaps? Don’t be late,” he told you with a dazzling smile, handing you the card.

You took it, heart thumping especially hard because of what it symbolized.

“Tonight?” you asked, You already had a client, and you doubted Pariston was going to pay for this ‘favor’. “I can’t.”

His chin fell back into his hand, looking up at you with a strangely coy look.

“No?” Pariston asked, “Well, as I said, you’re welcome to decline.”

“I’ll see you at six, then,” you responded quickly, his casually spoken threat hitting you hard. He smiled widely.

“I look forward to it!”

 

* * *

 

 

Of course Pariston Hill lived in a penthouse in some ritzy building, where else could he possibly live? You’d gotten used to ignoring the stares people gave you when you passed them all dressed up in the maid costume with your cleaning supplies in hand, but it was different with rich people. Their stares felt more judgy, if at all possible. Or maybe you were projecting. After all, there was nobody judging you more than yourself. Over and over you had to remember why you had to do this. That it would be fine, you would do what you always did and leave. Simple.

Those wannabe calm thoughts scattered when Pariston Hill opened his door, dressed down into a slightly unbuttoned and untucked blue shirt and pants. It struck you right then that he was, to your ultimate discomfort, incredibly attractive. There was a reason he had a cult of beauty obsessed fangirls. Even like this, or especially like this, you could understand his appeal as an idol. For a moment, it sent you staggering, definitely not helped by the way he smiled upon seeing you in your maid costume.

But you couldn’t let yourself become shaken up, you were a professional. Schooling your features into a bright service smile and putting your mind into the mentality that he was just another customer, you composed yourself, setting down your supplies.

“Hello, Master! I’m from the housekeeping service, and I’ll be serving you today!” you said in your very best cutesy maid voice, curtsying daintily. 

Pariston didn’t respond to your mantra for a drawn out moment, staring at you with a wide smile that was impossible for you to read. The cracks in your persona already felt ready to break under that stress, but finally he responded by stepping aside and motioning you in.

“Wonderful!” he enthused energetically, “Please, please, come in,  _Miss Maid_!” Pariston’s voice lingered on the title suggestively, but you ignored the way it made your skin crawl and picked up your things to enter his apartment.

Awe and surprise hit you, although the latter was, perhaps, misplaced for all that you should have expected a man like him to live in finery. The only thing you could really think of to describe the luxurious inside was that it looked like it belonged to Pariston Hill, but it also looked like nobody lived in it. You forced yourself not to gawk, turning back to him with a smile as he shut the door.

“Where would Master like to me clean today?” you asked sweetly.

“Oh? Straight to business?” Pariston asked, acting as the stranger client despite what you had expected, “There’s nothing you’d like first?”

“I am here to serve. There’s no need to treat me as a guest, Master,” you spouted out with your practiced response, “Unless you would like me to get _you_  something?”

“No, no,” Pariston refused quickly with a smile, “Well, if that’s the case, please follow me, Miss Maid.”

You followed him into the hall where he opened the second door, motioning you through first.

It was a study, not too dissimilar to his office at the Association, complete with a large desk and lined with bookshelves. It was incredibly fancy but, unlike the main room, it looked like a place that looked like was actually used on a regular basis.

“I don’t know how I allowed it to get so messy,” Pariston said, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment, “You came at the perfect time, Miss Maid. You see, I can’t stand working in an untidy environment.”

This was the best case scenario, yet you couldn’t help the feeling of surprise. He actually wanted you to clean. Its what you wanted, but not what you expected. Not that you would complain.

“I should think not, Master. You don’t have to worry, I’ll take care of it!” you said with renewed vigor, setting down your cleaning supplies.

“Perfect!” Pariston responded, “I’ll just be here if you need anything or have any questions.” He sat behind his desk, painting an image eerily similar to the afternoon. Still, being watched like that was normal for this job, even if Pariston’s stare was slightly more intimidating than your usual client.

Cleaning was, thankfully, a consuming and mindless task. You did the usual posing and posturing while dusting and sweeping and organizing, but you didn’t feel half as much of the embarrassment as you thought you’d feel. Pariston didn’t even cut in with odd comments, which was actually pretty rare in a client. Especially rare considering Pariston’s reputation for his unique brand of ‘teasing’.

Before long, you were finished. You shed the gloves you used to keep the chemical scent of cleaner from your hands, putting them in your carrier and standing straight to stretch.

“All done!” you announced with a smile, feeling far more comfortable in your maid act after everything had gone so reasonably, “As long as everything is to Master’s liking.”

Pariston didn’t even look at the room, his eyes trained on you intently.

“Yes, everything’s perfect,” he agreed in a honeyed tone, his smile sending a flash of uneasiness through you. Before your discomfort could even properly set in, that expression was gone. Pariston returned to his bubbly persona, standing up,  “Well, shall I show you to the next room?” he asked.

“There’s another?” you asked, picking up your cleaning supplies.

“Is that alright with you, Miss Maid?” he asked with a playful grin, crossing the room to the door.

You hesitated, but everything had been normal so far, and you did kind of need this work out. So you followed.

“Yes, Master. I am here to serve you, after all,” you replied as sweetly as you could, entering the hall behind Pariston. He stopped at a closed door, opening it and turning to you.

“After you,” he offered with a cute smile, motioning you in.

“Thank you,” you replied with a bob of your head, entering what you could only assume to be Pariston’s bedroom, taking a few slow steps in while your eyes widened in awe.

It was an excessively extravagant room straight out the glossy pages of some magazine, fit for royalty. The centerpiece, or at least the thing you were the most amazed by, was the massive canopy bed. It sat proudly on a raised platform and a curtain draped frame, lush with golden scrollwork and decadent detailing. Once, you’d have said you couldn’t imagine anybody sleeping in something so garishly grandiose, but it seemed perfectly reasonable that Pariston Hill would sleep in such luxury.

Amazement faded quickly, because you noticed a problem. The room was perfectly neat. Immaculately clean.

“Your twintails are very cute,” Pariston complimented you as he entered the room behind you, “But, I’ve been wondering, aren’t they meant to indicate innocence…?”

“Huh?” you asked, turning back to face him with a feeling of unease when you saw he’d shut the door, “What do you mean?”

“A girl working for a maid service could hardly be called innocent, don’t you think? You’re practically one step away from being a whore,” Pariston said in a playful tone, distracting from the harsh vulgarity of that word, “How much would I have to pay for you to get on your knees, Miss Maid?”

At first, all you could do was stare at Pariston mutely, the wheels in your mind spinning as it sorted through his words and if you actually heard him correctly. Then, you physically recoiled, your expression contorting in revulsion.

“Excuse me?” you asked, dropping any pretenses of your maid act in your shock.

“Oh dear, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Pariston said with a would-be worried tone and a bigger smile, “But… Am I wrong?” His voice was soft, knowing.

“You are,” you replied in disgust. Things had been going so well, but as soon as you entered his room, the atmosphere became completely different, uncomfortable and one step from being frightening. Belated warning bells started chiming in your head. “If there’s nothing else, I believe I’ve fulfilled my duty.”

Pariston didn’t respond, continuing to look at you as if searching for something. Or waiting. You straightened your shoulders and put your chin up.

“I’ll be going then, Mr Hill. I hope you were satisfied with my service,” you said, the often used words sounding hollow in your forcibly calm tone as you made to move past him will all the confidence you had.

“Oh, Miss Maid. There is one more thing,” Pariston said as you walked past. Before you could even think to react, he reached for your wrist, using his tight grip to turn you around. The cleaning supplies you’d been holding crashed to the floor noisily, quickly followed by your yelp of surprised pain and the loud thump made when your back was slammed into the wall.

Pariston held both of your hands pinned above your head, his leg pushed between yours in a way that still managed to feel invasive despite the layers of skirts and fabric between you. All your panicked struggling did was make the already compromising position worse, practically grinding your body against his.

“Let go of me!” you demanded in a trembling voice, blinking fast to push down the awful burn of frightened tears.

“Aw,” Pariston cooed, still wearing a smile you’d call innocent if you didn’t know any better. “You’re shaking,” he pointed out happily, “That’s very cute.”

Pariston’s eyes were dark, the warm color hardened to something frighteningly empty. Cruel, when compared to his overall joyful expression.

“If you won’t be paid to get on your knees… Perhaps you’d do it as a  _favor,_ ” he asked in a silky voice, not moving an inch even with your renewed vigor in fighting his grip.

“I already did what you wanted!” you told him, your voice shaky and tense with a fearful anger, the only emotion you could hope to convey that didn’t involve tears.

“That’s not true,” he replied with slight confusion, “I never specified what type of maid service I expected you to provide. There are many types, aren’t there? Of course…” Pariston paused, his smile deepening, “You’re allowed to leave. As I said, I wouldn’t want to  _force_  you.”

As if to prove that, he freed your hands and stepped away, watching you intently as you considered your options. Limited. Very, very limited. You had far more on the line with the Association than just a job, and anyway it wasn’t the job you’d lose, but any and all respect you’d managed to gain in the time you’d been there.

This was the blackmail you’d feared, but to think that Pariston would ask for anything else after asking you to come to his place had been naive on your part, hadn’t it? You closed your eyes for a moment, trying to think of any other options. You couldn’t, not while you could feel his gaze burning into your skin.

“If I do…” You swallowed hard, eyes opening and casting down in shame, “Then that’s it?”

Pariston hummed in agreement. You nodded, trying to steady your breathing and stop your heart from its ceaseless pounding against your rib cage.

“Okay,” you reluctantly replied, your eyes rising to meet his.

“Is that the attitude a maid should have for pleasing her master?” Pariston asked teasingly. How could such honeyed words be so cutting? You fought down the awful feeling of sick in your stomach and the bile it pushed up your throat to ready the words you knew he wanted, and the smile to accompany them.

“No, master. I’m sorry,” you apologized demurely, falling back into character to play his warped game, “Of course I want to please you.” Keeping your eyes down, you stepped close to stand in front of him, your breathing speeding up as reality set in.

“Do you need instruction, Miss Maid?” Pariston asked with a cocky smile.

“No!” you said with a slight panic in imagining him trying to talk you through this already humiliating process, “No, Master,” you amended when you saw the way Pariston’s callous eyes flashed. Trying not to think too hard about it, you fell on your knees in front of him, your skirt and pettiskirt flaring out around you. You were still shaking, your fingers trembling and making you fumble awkwardly as you undid his belt. All the while, you felt Pariston watching every movement.

His pants were easier to undo than the belt, allowing you to push the fabric aside. Your first thought was that it could be worse. Pariston was clean, trimmed, and circumcised. The second thought was that you couldn’t believe this was happening. You took his dick in a shaky hand to stroke the shaft, working him to full hardness while your mind raced while trying to remember all the articles regarding blowjobs in every trashy magazine you’d ever read and everything that had worked with your past boyfriends.

“Is there a problem, Miss Maid?” Pariston cooed from above, obviously amused.

You blinked hard again, pushing down shame, regret, and self loathing to focus on breathing evenly.

“No, Master,” you breathed, unable to look up.

Stroking him once more with your dominant hand, you finally ventured out with your tongue. Trying to start slow, you leaned in to lick a wide stripe across the underside, swirling your tongue around the smooth skin of the head in a way you hoped he’d like. You couldn’t tell, since Pariston didn’t react and you were too afraid to look up and check.

So you continued, wrapping your lips around the very end and moving forward, sucking lightly and easing back before going further, keeping your tongue running along the smooth skin and your hand moving around the base. Pariston still had yet to offer any affirmation or direction as far as what he wanted, so you began to pick up the pace, feeling a bit more confident as you managed to take him deeper in your mouth.

“I was right,” Pariston declared silkily, his hands dropping to hold onto your ‘cute’  twintails, pulling on your scalp ever so slightly and displacing the frilly headband that matched your uniform, “You’re not innocent at all, Miss Maid. Only filthy girls like you would so brazenly pleasure a man into keeping a dirty secret…”

His words hurt, but the sting was wiped from your mind when Pariston suddenly jerked his hands, pulling the fistfuls of your hair from the handlebars you’d unknowingly created. The harsh movement ruined the rhythm you’d created, shoving himself almost all the way into your throat and making you gag before he allowed you to pull back, but not off.

“You can do better than that, Miss Maid,” Pariston mocked cloyingly, his voice less controlled than before, “There’s no point in pretending to be innocent. We both know the truth.”

This time when he pulled you forward, you were able to move with him, suppressing both your gag reflex and the sob that threatened to choke you enough to not suffocate. The protest you offered to Pariston’s actions and words was nothing more than a choppy hum as he relentlessly thrust into your mouth.

“That’s better,” Pariston cooed, reverting back to the sugary sweet tone, a horrible contradiction to his pitiless violence.

You quickly figured out that struggling was pointless, all it got you was an especially painful tug of your hair. The most you could do was brace your hands against his thighs to steady yourself and keep your eyes squeezed shut, focusing only on breathing through your nose and not gagging. Tears and saliva were creating an increasingly wet mess with every thrust, dripping uncomfortably down your cheeks and chin and onto your white apron in excess.

“Yes… You look so cute right now,” Pariston complimented you, his honeyed voice straining with pleasure. It made you shiver. “I’ve wanted to see that cheap mascara running down your cheeks since the first day we met, you know, but… I couldn’t have possibly imagined it to be this good.”

Your inarticulate response that rose up in your throat was muffled, a helplessly hopeless and choppy sound.

“So cute…! But… I still want something else..” Pariston let go of your hair, allowing your burning scalp some peace and pulling out of your mouth to let you fell back clumsily. Your breathing was harsh, your jaw sore, and saliva and mascara tears had created an awful mess both on your face and skirt.

There was no break, no time to even attempt to recuperate. Pariston flipped you over, pushing your torso down and your face into the polish scented smooth hardwood.

“Lift your skirt for me, Miss Maid,” he ordered lowly, a dark excitement in his voice. You fought his hold, another pointless endeavor with Pariston holding you down so roughly.

“Let-Let me go!” you cried, your voice muffled by the way he was pushing your face into the hard floor and distorted with the fear and tears you couldn’t stop. “You said that if I did… That…  You said that would be it!”

“My, my… You should have at least gotten a verbal agreement,” Pariston told you teasingly, “That’s an amateur mistake. It makes me wonder if you haven’t chosen the wrong career path, after all.” Pariston flipped your skirt up himself, catching your hands when you tried to push it back down and pinning them, and your skirt, to your back. He laughed. “Yes… You’ve made it so easy for me to play with you…” Pariston murmured quietly, his voice dropping suggestively.

He ran his hand over your thinly clothed ass, over the cute lacy white panties you wore in case any client got a peek under your skirt, moving down to feel you through the fabric. The touch made you shiver, eliciting a soft whimper from your mouth.

“Pariston… Please don’t do this-” your voice cracked, sounding awfully pitiful without the cover of would be angry fear, “Not this, please.”

“Miss Maid, if you’re going to beg, you should at least address me properly,” Pariston taunted happily, “Otherwise I might have to punish you.” He pulled your underwear out of the way, exposing you and pushing your legs apart enough to make the seams begin to give out. A sob wracked your body, your eyes squeezing shut.

“M-Master, please stop. I’m begging you,” the words burned to say, but your pride was already damned.

“Eh? You don’t actually want me to stop, do you?” Pariston asked in faux confusion, making you jump when he ran his finger across your slit, “It doesn’t seem as if your body does.” His fingers pushed deeper, seeking your entrance with a practiced confidence. It made you writhe, a high pitched whine caught in your throat that was half protesting and half surprised by the sparks of pleasure the light touch created.

“How nice… You really are a disgusting little whore, aren’t you?” Pariston asked in a voice like caramel, sweet and smooth enough you could almost miss the poison of those awful words. “You’re wet, Miss Maid.”

There was nothing you could say to that, no reply you could possibly think of but the self loathing and shame stirred within you. It almost made sense, bringing other pleasure had always been satisfying to you in occasionally sexual ways. But here, now, in this situation, it was nothing short of deplorably twisted. Pariston didn’t wait for the answer you didn’t have, pushing those two fingers into you without warning, making you cry out and tense up all over again.

He was right, you were wet.

There was still enough of a stretch to be uncomfortable, made worse by how rigid your body had become, but his manicured fingers still slid into you smoothly. No, it didn’t hurt too terribly, but the humiliation of being exposed and touched by him was a bone deep horror. The last of your anger bubbled to the surface, bringing about a fresh wave of tears as Pariston experimentally moved his fingers within you, creating enough friction to make you unconsciously tighten around them.

“Fuck you,” you whimpered in a broken voice, a pathetic insult that had no weight considering the position you were in, face pushed into a puddle of your own tears and saliva and Pariston’s long digits slowly fucking into you. 

He laughed.

“Oh dear, what a crass mouth you have… I think I’m beginning to like you, Miss Maid,” Pariston told you, his voice drawn out and heavy with arousal. He pulled his fingers away and released your hands to grasp your hip, using his other hand to line himself up, “Now, hold still… I wouldn’t want to hurt you by  _accident_.”

“Wai-” your panicked plea cut off with a pained sob when Pariston pushed in, your hands raising to make pointless fists by your head as your head spun with the sharp pain of the sudden stretch. That sound eased into a whine when he began to move, pulling out agonizingly slow.

“Eh? Did you say something?” Pariston asked mockingly, the slight tremor in his voice betraying his thrill as he pushed back in just as slowly. It forced you to feel him, to feel every inch of his dick as it filled you until his pelvis was flush to your backside.

“Stop,” you begged, the word becoming meaningless with your lack of fight when he pulled back out, with the hitch in your breath and the shiver that ran down your spine as he filled you again.

“If you didn’t want me to take you, you shouldn’t have agreed to come to my apartment,” Pariston explained as if you were a child, his hands holding your hips steady as he began moving faster. “Even then,” he continued, “This wasn’t certain until you entered my bedroom… You could have avoided this fate in a dozen different ways… But you didn’t want to, did you, Miss Maid?” he asked, his delight returning with those words.

As if to prove them, Pariston pulled your hips up to give him a different angle. A hot strike of heat shot through your stomach to your core when you heard him groan at the change, his breath hitching with a particularly hard thrust. The sound and the feeling pulled a moan from your lips. A shameful sound. The idea that you would take pleasure in being defiled like this was abhorrent, but you couldn’t ignore how the change in position made him enter you differently. The simulation was too pressing, too present, too good, a hundred different sensory details and emotions overloading your mind, and it sought escape in the growing pleasure.

“That’s right,” Pariston encouraged, forcing your back to arch so he could fuck you like that with every thrust, “It’s as I thought,” he laughed breathlessly, “But I don’t mind… Not at all. I wanted this, too.”

“I didn’t,” you protested, your breathless and teary whine hardly making a decent argument, “I-I don’t.”

“Oh? Then why can I feel you tightening around me?” Pariston asked lowly, sickeningly sweet, “If you truly didn’t want this, don’t you think you should have fought harder…?” His hand left your hip, moving down beneath your body to seek out your clit with the soft tips of his fingers, making his point by the way your body jolted against his when he began touching you, the way you couldn’t choke back the whimper of pleasure.

“Pariston-” you cut yourself off, knowing that if you spoke you’d be unable to push down the sounds you felt welling up. When he heard his name, Pariston groaned, moving even faster inside of you. The slapping sound of skin on skin filled his room, and every time he entered you, it pushed you roughly into the floor. It might have hurt, but your mind was becoming dazed with the way he was rubbing against your clit in time to the pace he was fucking you, two types of pleasure twisting together in an unavoidable coil of need.

“You’re going to come for me, aren’t you?” he asked, and you could imagine his pleased smile now. The response you offered was nothing more than a mewl, too consumed by the chase of release, by the sickeningly wrong build of an orgasm. “You could fight me now by refusing,” Pariston told you in a saccharine matter-of-fact tone, “But you can’t help yourself, can you, Miss Maid.”

“St-op,” you gasped out, hatred adding a bite to the frenzy of sensations and emotions twisting and writhing and pulsing through you. You didn’t mean it, not really. The word was merely lip service to the protest you knew you should offer, but the swell of pleasure was building and tightening and coiling in your core and you wanted to get off no matter who the source because you’d never been fucked like this and maybe you were the slut he accused you of being, but oh God you didn’t care right now.

“P-Pariston, I’m.. I can’t-” those thoughtless words cut off in a silent scream as you came, your body tensing and spasming, overflowing with the rush of undiluted pleasure. The hand that had been on your hip took advantage of your overwhelmed state to wrap around your neck, pulling your back into a painful arch while you were still lost in the mania of sensation. Somehow, the pain only added to the delicious swells of blissful heat, making you cry out in earnest while he prolonged your release.

“I didn’t expect you to be so indecent that you would call my name…” Pariston said, speaking you while you were still caught the dazed wake of release. He laughed lowly against your ear, the burst of breath raising chills on your sensitive skin, “Are you still going to deny your desire, Miss Maid? You can claim to be an innocent all you want… but I’m afraid the evidence otherwise is quite compelling.”

He pulled out of you with a horribly slick sound, the hand that had been on your clit sliding through the wet evidence of your orgasm and making you jerk against him, the uncomfortable position and horror of what you’d allowed to happen setting in.

“That’s-” you stopped yourself. Untrue? No it wasn’t. You were flushed and breathless, the confines of your maid uniform having become nearly unbearably restricting and hot. Although you didn’t know exactly what you looked like, it was a fact that you were completely disheveled, still shaking from pleasure. Pariston said it himself, you could have avoided all of this. “Why are you doing this?” you asked in a pathetic voice instead.

Pariston didn’t answer, releasing his hold and practically throwing you to the floor with a painful thump. Seconds later, he had you flipped on your back, holding you down to stop any fight while he positioned himself and pushed back into you mercilessly. It made you cry out, your body sensitive and too responsive.

“Why? Didn’t I tell you? I like you,  _Miss Maid_ ,” Pariston told you with that drawn out sweetness, staring down at you while holding your hips up so he could experimentally roll his, an entirely different sensation than being fucked, nearly intimate. Like this, Pariston could watch you, see every expression and reaction you couldn’t control from above with his terrifyingly dark eyes and sadistic smile. You wanted to deny him that, but it  was impossible to help the way this new position affected you, pulling the lingering pleasure of release up from your mind and filling you with desire.

“At first I only wanted to play with you a little, but now… “ Pariston pulled out, snapping his hips forward with a sudden and surprising roughness, “I want to see how much you can  _take_.” The last word strained when he repeated the violent motion, making you cry out again and squeeze your eyes shut to hide from him.

“Keep your eyes open, Miss Maid,” Pariston told you, accentuating his command with another too harsh thrust. You shook your head, your shaking hands at your side while you fought to keep silent in the face of the pleasure and pain he was forcing on you. It was a fight you lost when Pariston sped up. The feeling wasn’t just  _good_ , although that certainly had a stake in the reason for your shaking and whimpering, mostly, it  _hurt_. He was going too hard, too fast, it was too violent.

“Open your eyes, or I might feel compelled hurt you,” Pariston told you, all pretenses of his cloying sweetness gone from the low tone. It was, truly and genuinely, one of the most unsettling sounds you’d ever heard.

“No,” you denied in fear and false bravery, getting the word out between gasping breaths and turning your face away. Pariston’s hips stuttered slightly in the rapid pace as he shifted positions, and then his hand was wrapped around your neck. 

Choking you.

Panic consumed you instantly as Pariston’s hand tightened, crushing your windpipe and falling back into fucking you with that painfully punishing pace without hesitation. Terror made you obey, your petrified eyes snapping open to meet his nearly inhuman gaze.

“How nice… What a wonderful expression, Miss Maid,” he cooed darkly, his words heavy and affected with arousal.

You struggled frantically, your brain screaming with its need for oxygen as you clawed at his hand, making ugly choking noises as you suffocated. He was going to kill you. You knew it, you could feel it because his grip was horrifically painful and you couldn’t breathe and he hadn’t stopped fucking you and the world was already going, sensations narrowing and dulling and your thoughts scattering.

“You’re very scared… But you don’t hate me yet, do you…?” Pariston asked, his lust heavy words all but lost on your ringing ears. When black began spotting across your vision, Pariston’s hand let up. Not all the way, but enough for you to wheeze in a breath, stopping you from passing out, “That’s okay…. For now.”

“Please,” you croaked out, still doing your best to pull at his hand while your watering eyes plead with his. At your pathetic plea, Pariston’s cruel eyes flashed and widened, his hand tightening again.

“That look of pain is beautiful on you… I could destroy you now….”

While your horrified and dizzy panic ate away all rationality and reason, Pariston was beginning to tense up, the pace of his hips becoming uneven. He was going to come by using you. Distantly, you recognized the blush on his cheeks and the way his expression fell into something that almost looked angry, but his hand was too tight to really process it, the grip only getting tighter as he finally found release, buried deep inside of you.

That was the last thing you felt as black spots corrupted your vision, everything fading out for what could have been an eternity or less than a second. Then, there was air. And words.

“Miss Maid~” Pariston cooed from above you, his hand no longer on your throat, but tapping gently against your cheek. You blinked your eyes open, head spinning as rational thought returned to your mind. With it came understanding of the situation and fear, but mostly all you felt was pain. You groaned, but your throat protested at the sound. Your neck had to be bruised.

“What happened?” you got the strength to ask in a painful and cracked voice, your tone flat as numbness lingered in your brain.

“Well,” Pariston said, sitting up with a bashful smile, his eyes back to sparkling and clothes already fixed, “I might have been too rough… That’s okay, though, isn’t it? You truly do provide a quality service, Miss Maid. I look forward to hiring you again.”


	55. Hisoka + Pregnancy

Misery, you had thought, was screaming so much that you coughed blood as you asked Hisoka to stop, begging him to leave you be because you knew that if you spent even a second longer under the yellow spotlight of his eyes you were going to unravel. Before, misery was the tears and the blood and the absolute loss of control when he pushed you down and fucked you, when he left you with the mess of his so-called love dripping from any usable hole and drying on your bruised and bleeding skin, trapped in the isolation of your violated body and slowly crumbling mind.

Oh, but that had been nothing, hadn’t it? True and genuine despair was written on the little white stick in the form of two lines that had become unclear with the shaking of your hand. It clattered into the running sink when you could no longer bear its weight, your hands slipping on the chipped porcelain as you attempt to find some stability.

Misery wasn’t screaming and crying and bleeding and pain and hate and coming undone over and over simply because He demanded it. It was empty. A burst of raw pain bubbling up around the too fast beat of your heart, swelling up your throat until you choked and falling from your open mouth as you screamed in silence. You weren’t, you were, you couldn’t.

“What  _are_  you doing in here?” Hisoka asked, startling you. The surprise of his entry pulled your panicked and red rimmed eyes up to look at him in the mirror behind you. He leaned in the door frame, asking you with a seemingly real curiously.

“Get out,” you forced up through your swollen throat. Hisoka couldn’t know, absolutely couldn’t know. Was it death you feared from him finding out that you were infected with his seed? You should have craved death after all he’d done to you, but madness had yet to offer its solace and your stupid eyes still gleamed bright with the foolish desire to live.

“Oh?” Hisoka asked suspiciously, coming up behind you to see what you were doing with the sink, reaching his arms past you to shut off the water. Then he saw it, laying in the basin. “What’s this?”

The words to tell him to stop were in your mouth, but they fell dead on your lips. Helpless dread made you unable to do anything but watch as Hisoka picked up the pregnancy test, his body pressed against your back in a way that could almost be called intimate. And this was an intimate moment, wasn’t it? The efforts of his love was polluting your body, draining you just as he had.

Life or death. You feared both as you watched his enigmatic expression in the mirror, his chin nearly on your shoulder. Then, he smiled.

“My, my, it seems I haven’t been rough enough with you…” Hisoka mused casually, dropping the stick back into the sink with a jarringly loud clatter of plastic on porcelain. In the same moment, his unreadable eyes flicked up to meet your horrified ones in the mirror.

“Shouldn’t you be happy?” Hisoka asked, pulling you against him in a mockery of a tender embrace. His body was hot and restricting, his arms a prison you were well acquainted with. “ _I’ve given you the gift of life, after all,_ ” he whispered in your ear.  

“No,” you finally found the voice to say. Speaking broke you from the cold spell of despair, unhappily ripping you from the gentle grasp of the cold. Becoming animated by a bright flash of disgust and fear, you struggled against Hisoka. “ _No,_ ” you repeated with more conviction, grunting as you pulled free from his arms, running from the bathroom with blood roaring in your ears.  

The spurt of energy was short lived, as pathetic as the creature who attempted it. Hisoka didn’t even need to catch you, since you tripped on the door frame as you attempted to leave the bedroom. The floor hit hard, your body awkwardly splaying partly into the hall, banging up your elbows and knees. Pain was irrelevant to you, though, because while you were down, a hand closed in around your ankle.

“You really should be more careful,” Hisoka told you as he pulled you back into the room, flipping you onto your back. He looked excited as he pinned you down, yellow eyes bright and cheeks slightly flushed. Your attempts at fighting him off didn’t displace him, didn’t even phase him, but he caught your arms all the same, holding you still beneath him. “Don’t do anything  _careless_ ,” Hisoka warned in a syrupy voice, “I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to  _our_  child.”

Somehow those words struck you through with misery anew, a fresh twist of disgusted despair squeezing your heart and mixing with the adrenaline you managed to drum up in your attempt at escaping Hisoka.

“Get off of me!” you all but shouted into his face, your tone heavy with desperation. Hisoka’s smile only grew.

“Okay,” he replied sweetly, releasing your hands. Not freeing them. When you tried to move, to fight him off, they stuck to the floor. Bungee Gum. He’d trapped you.

“No no… Hisoka, please,” you begged, your chest heaving as you pulled uselessly at your hands, struggling beneath him. You felt like you couldn’t breathe.

“I need to check if the baby’s alright,” Hisoka told you with a playful smile, moving off of your torso to slide down your body. You’d been with him long enough to know where this was going, because this was where it always ended, wasn’t it?

“Don’t,” you said in a frustratingly breathless voice, kicking at him while he pushed up your shirt to reveal your fluttering stomach, his body poised between your legs. You couldn’t handle it. Tears finally started to form while you fought to breathe, your heart pounding so hard against your ribs it almost hurt, pushing blood through your ears with a sound like a freight train.

“It’s alright,” Hisoka soothed you in a familiar sugary soft voice, pressing a tender kiss to your stomach, “I’ve done this before.”

You couldn’t see his smile, but you could feel it as he moved down your skin with soft touches of his lips and fingers. Gentle, oh-so gentle. It was better when he was violent, when it hurt. This was… This was the true torture.  

“Hisoka, do-on’t,” you plead when he reached the waistband of your shorts, your chest heaving as you fought to get air into your lungs. It made it hard to fight, the panic sapping the strength from your body as the reality of what those two horrifying lines truly meant for you.

“It’s my responsibility to see to the health of our child as long as you insist on being so careless,” Hisoka told you, pulling your shorts and underwear down.

You choked on a breathless sob, letting your head fall back into the floor with a loud thump. It didn’t hurt, nor did it provide any real distraction when he first touched you. It didn’t matter how much you hated him, and you believed that you truly did hate Hisoka, because your body  _wanted_  to respond to his touch. All it took was for him to expose your clit with two fingers and run his tongue along that incredibly sensitive skin for the two opposing signals of panic and pleasure to collide.

“Hi-so-kah,” you were panting, gasping for air while your body tried to writhe against his tongue. You couldn’t handle it, not all together like this. Your attempt at getting his name out only made Hisoka move more energetically, doing the things he knew you liked the most while you suffocated on the feeling of claustrophobia, of being touched against your will, of being pregnant with his child. 

Oh, but it felt so  _good_.

Your dizzied and spinning head hit the floor again, your back arching helplessly while tears flowed from your eyes and awful smothered moans came from your lips, far overshadowed by the desperate way you gasped for air. Hisoka held your legs down as you kicked in your desperate resistance of the overwhelming torture of sensation and fear.

Each second was met with the terrified thought that you couldn’t handle any more, and agony when you did. Your heart was beating terribly face, pounding against the cage of bone your ribs had become. You wanted to scream, but there was no air, the piercing sound wound itself up in your mouth and throat, acting as another gag for you to choke on. 

You were empty. Empty of air, of thought, of control.

But, you were too full, your bones felt as if they could crack with the pressure. You were too full with the unwanted parasite Hisoka had planted within you, too full with hundreds of different emotions trapped in the confines of your flesh.

And still, even still, Hisoka’s tongue was making your core muscles tighten, the incomprehensible build of pleasure finding its own place in your despairing and overloaded brain. You didn’t want to come. You hated yourself for being so weak to his desires, but you were going to anyway because that’s what Hisoka dictated. That’s what he wanted when he started with two fingers, pushing them into your overwhelmed body without mercy, filling you in another horrible way, but a way that you couldn’t help but push yourself into.

It didn’t matter that you couldn’t breath and you were choking on panic and the disgusted claustrophobia of your own body and mind. It didn’t matter it didn’t matter it didn’t, the tension in your core was blazing, your body reached for release while Hisoka fucked you with his fingers and tongue and your vision spotted black. You wanted to orgasm more than you wanted air, more than freedom from the horrible emotions burning acidically through your insides, more than freedom from Hisoka himself. When you came, it didn’t ease you from your torment with pleasure or carnal desire, it was release and fulfillment of a different kind. It was stimulation itself in your mind that had only been able to focus on emotion and abstract panic and fear. Hisoka pushed you into it full tilt, blacking out your vision because breathing was no longer a priority as you chased that wonderful, terrible feeling.

Awareness came with heaving draw of breath as your body wound down from the extremes of pleasure and horror. Sobs wracked your body while you laid, exposed and defiled yet again.

“You did very well,” Hisoka praised you as he pulled you into his arms. You hated him, you certainly did, but you were weak and distraught, and if you clung to him, pushing yourself into the heat of his embrace, who could blame you?

“Our child is healthy. You didn’t do any damage, after all,” Hisoka told you, petting your back in an uncharacteristically sweet fashion.

The mention of the child struck a chord somewhere within you, but you were completely and utterly exhausted. Both your body and mind had been pushed too far, even reality felt like it was slipping from your shaky grasp. When Hisoka let you fall back onto the floor, flopping lifelessly on your stomach, the most you could offer was a croaked out cry of protest.

“ _But_ ,” Hisoka said in an excited tone, pulling up your hips to grind his clothed erection against your bare skin, “I worry that he might be  _lonely_.”  


	56. Yandere Kurapika Prompt: Tell me how much you love me.

Kurapika wasn’t angry, coming to you with red hazed eyes and a hard voice. He wasn’t cold, either, aloof and calculating as he paced the floor. There was no tragic sadness or regret in the silence of the words he didn’t speak.

If you had to use a single world to describe him, it would be that Kurapika was  _desperate_. Desperation lent a sharp emptiness to his eyes when he arrived in the evening, coming into the room he’d caged you within and offering no greeting. Desperation was a beat in each of the urgently quick steps he took to get to you, and it hung thickly in the quietly charged air.

You knew him well, but you didn’t know this emotion.

“Kurapika-” you said in surprise at his sudden appearance, sitting up on the bed and letting your book fall, moving to stand up. 

Yes, you were scared to see him in a mood you’d never witnessed, scared of his silence, and that look in his eye. But fear could only mean so much when you were overwhelmed with  _relief_. Each hour he was gone passed like a lifetime of loneliness, convincing you that you’d go mad. No matter what mood Kurapika was in, or how he’d treat you, at least you weren’t alone anymore.

In a way, you were very happy to see him.

That emotion was short lived because Kurapika didn’t even give you a chance to stand. His gray eyes focused intensely when they landed on yours, making you freeze. He didn’t hesitate in pushing back down onto the bed, landing on top of you so his body was flush with yours, but careful not to rest his weight on you. You cried out in surprise, a sudden burst of fear blooming in your chest at the sudden movement.

“Look at me,” Kurapika told you without dropping any of his intensity, his voice urgent, but not harsh. He sounded pained, almost, as if he was begging for something vital to his well-being. 

Trying to force your breathing to even out and heart to stop betraying your nerves, you focused on him. Kurapika’s face was defined by his obvious lack of rest or self care, the bags beneath his eyes almost bruise-like. His expression, however, was defined by the look in his eyes. Yearning, or need. A hollowness that made your heart  _ache_. You could even call it pleading. He looked lost.

“What’s wrong?” you whispered into the charged air between you, eyebrows furrowing in worry.

Kurapika didn’t respond, allowing silence an extra beat before closing the distance between you. His lips pressed to yours with the needy desperation of a starving man. Matching the messy and unrestrained way he kissed, Kurapika’s cold hands moved across your warm skin, raising chills along your skin, making you writhe beneath him. He was kissing you like there was nothing else in the world that mattered, like he would die if the contact was broken.

Once, you had fought against this type of treatment, fought him off in anger and disgust. But now, you understood, you could feel the need swirling within him as hopelessly as you felt your resistance crumbling. Because he didn’t kiss with the need for a lover, but for you. Kurapika needed  _you_. 

He kept you trapped and leveled a frightening array of incomprehensible and sometimes cruel emotions at you, but he needed you. And didn’t you need him? Kurapika was all you had anymore, the only thing keeping you from losing it altogether, the only one to look forward to and the only one you had to talk to. You couldn’t deny the way you craved his touch, either, not when your body was moving against his without any conscious effort on your part.

Kurapika needed you, you could feel his desperate pain in the artlessly emotional way he touched you, the way he held you like a lifeline. Kurapika loved you.

So you kissed back, letting your hands tentatively rise to touch the silky strands of his hair as they framed his face. He made a sound at your acceptance, a soft moan that sounded as pained as it did pleasured. That sound made you shiver, filling you with warmth. You needed him, too.

Breaking the kiss so the both of you could breathe, Kurapika pulled his lips from yours, burying his face in your neck instead, his breathing heavy and harsh on that sensitive skin. He had one hand pushed through your hair, the other beneath the hem of your shirt, pressed against your side.

“Kurapika… What’s… What’s wrong?” you asked breathlessly, your voice thin and shaky with concern, and maybe a bit of lust. 

“Tell me….” Kurapika mumbled, his voice low and rough with emotion, nearly impossible to hear when it was muffled by your neck.

“Kurapika…” You tried to pull his head up, pushing at his shoulders.

It happened too fast for you to react, even your body’s natural instinct to flinch was too late with how quickly Kurapika had your pushing hands pinned on either side of your head. Not roughly, but the sudden movement still sent your heart into a frenzy, your body going stiff. Kurapika looked down at you with pink cheeks and his pupils blown wide, his eyes glassy and filled with that need, that desperate search.

“Tell me,” he repeated, more clearly. Begging, ordering, pleading,  _desperate_ , “How much you love me.”


	57. Yandere Pariston Hill Prompt: This hurts? Good. Keep showing me that expression, my love.

It was almost two in the morning when Pariston finally got back. You hadn’t been able to fall asleep, having tossed and turned restlessly for the last few hours as your mind conjured all sorts of images about what he might be doing. All he’d told you was ‘Don’t wait up’.

Contradicting emotions warred in your mind as you heard him approach the bedroom. Some part of you wanted to be angry, to yell and cry to try and express even the smallest amount of the hurt you felt, but the other wanted to hold it in. To deny showing him your reaction.

By the time Pariston opened the door and turned on the overhead light, you still hadn’t decided which one to go with, sitting up and blinking blearly at him in the sudden and harsh light.

“Oh? Did I wake you up?” he asked with exaggerated concern when his eyes met yours.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you told him, an awful edge of hurt in your quiet voice. It made Pariston’s lips quirk, entering the room and beginning to take off his clothes right away.

“I didn’t mean to be out so late, but it was at the invitation of a very important financial backer. As a representative of the Association, I couldn’t be rude… You understand, don’t you?” he asked, sending a smile your way with the question.

You felt a little sick, looking at him and his disheveled appearance, overwhelmed by your powerlessness in your relationship and the sinking sensation of tears.

There was nothing you could do or say. So you didn’t, throwing the covers off of you and sliding off the bed. Pariston was halfway through the line of buttons on his shirt when he noticed you were leaving.

“Eh? What are you doing?” he asked with seemingly genuine confusion.

“You should bring a stain stick with you next time,” you advised in as careful of a voice as you had, turning to look Pariston in the eye, “Or at least ask the girl not to get her lipstick on your collar.”

Behind Pariston’s eyes, you could see something flash. It was like he was studying you, or thinking intensely about something, whatever it was he did when you felt so unable to look away, held in the capture of his dark gaze for a second too long. Then he laughed, blowing all that tension away with the sound.

“Oh dear, are you jealous?” he asked, as if the notion was endearing somehow. You knew your face twisted into a pout, so you looked away, heaving a heavy breath. There was nothing you could say to that, the both of you knew that you were. Instead you reached out to open the door, intending to sleep on the couch.

You didn’t hear Pariston move, but you’d only gotten the door cracked a few inches before his arm reached past you to slam it back into the frame, standing directly behind you. The movement and loud sound made you jump, flinching back and into his body with a sharp noise of surprise.

“This is odd,” Pariston said with a playful lilt, “I told you before that you’re my favorite… Have you forgotten already? Or… Maybe you’d prefer a reminder…?” he asked in a lower tone. The hand not pressed flat to the door went to your side, smoothing the fabric of your pajama shirt to slowly slide down the curve of your waist and hip, his fingers teasing the edge of your shorts. You tensed up even further, your breath hitching at the offer.

“No,” you denied, “I just want to sleep.” Of course you wanted him, at least a little. But not now, and certainly not when he was like this.

“Are you really that angry with me?” Pariston asked, pulling his arm away to get you to turn to face him. He raised a hand as if to lecture you, speaking with a small smile. “They say that couples should never go to bed angry, you know. Isn’t it best that we resolve this before sleeping?”

You stared up at Pariston’s unbreakable smile and unreadable eyes. Once again, you felt far too many conflicting emotions to decide which one to act upon, so you just looked away.

“It’s late. We can do this tomorrow,” you responded dispassionately.  

“My, my, this really is a problem,” Pariston said with a muted delight, “But, it’s a part of why you’re my favorite…” he hummed happily. You stiffened at that tone and the promise in his voice, but it was only a minor fright compared to how he pushed you painfully against the shut door, pinning you. One of his hands landed back on your hip with a bruising grip, the other pulling your face up towards his. Pariston wore a dark expression, an unnerving smile, as he looked down at you.

“Yes. No other girl is as much fun to play with. When you act like this… It makes me want to do all kinds of terrible things to you,” he told you in a low voice. You tried to jerk away from his grasp in disgust, but Pariston only held you tighter, his smile widening when he pushed a knee between your legs. You tried to shove him away with a grimace of pain, but the hand holding your chin caught your wrist, squeezing it hard enough that you could have sworn you heard the bones grind.

“Pariston,  _stop_ ,” you pleaded with a cry of pain, actually scared that he would break your wrist. The danger swimming in his dark brown eyes certainly seemed to promise such a thing.

“This hurts?” Pariston asked with sadistic glee, his smile still managing to catch light with the source behind him, “Good. Keep showing me that expression, my love. Let me show you why you’re my favorite.”


	58. Illumi Prompt: Tell me how much you love me.

Tensions had been high, for you at least, when you spoke. _Of course_  you were upset, at your wits end because of the constant isolation and strain while Illumi was away.  _Of course_  you said something stupid, because that’s what people did when they were overwhelmed by their emotions to the point of losing control.

_“I’m a capable person! I don’t need you!’_

You hadn’t meant the second part, not literally. All you meant was that before your marriage, you were a competent assassin who functioned without him. If he had allowed for you to explain after you realized exactly how stupid your words were, you’d have told Illumi that you were only lashing out  _because_  you needed him, because when he was away you felt like you could hardly bear to live.

But, he hadn’t cared to hear an explanation as he stripped you and tied you up, working with a dispassionate calm despite your pleading. You made a mistake, so Illumi would punish you. No matter how many times this had happened, you weren’t used to it, you still begged him not to.

The bondage wasn’t the worst part, what had really made your heart stop was when he’d casually pulled out the hitachi wand you thought you had successfully kept hidden from him. A sex toy you’d buried at the bottom of a drawer in hands of Illumi was almost more frightening than a weapon. 

Sitting in front of you casually and fully clothed, Illumi used his grip on the harness to pull you into a kneeling position that kept your thighs spread wide. He held you upright even as you squirmed, a position that made certain you faced him while his other hand pushed the vibrating head of the hitachi to your clit, unwavering as you tried to move away in jerky panicked movements.

“Illumi,  _stop_.,” you begged with whiny sort of panic, your body already straining and trembling against the bindings, “Not.. please don’t… Sto-” you cut off with a whimper as he adjusted the position of the head, squeezing your eyes shut so as to not have to meet his merciless eyes.

“You’ve tried this before,” Illumi said noted, his voice light and unaffected, “Good. So you understand.”  
  
Understand? Was he asking if you understood how, at some point, the vibrations of the toy had become nothing but agony to you? A tortuous reminder of all the hours you’d spend in misery, chasing even the barest hint of satisfaction in Illumi’s absence and failing. A headache was already pulsing against your forehead, or at least the anticipation of one. You understood these things, but how did he?

That thought blew out of your mind as a fresh wave of sparks zipped through your body, the tension in your core building quickly because of the high setting he’d started with. If you could come, Illumi intended for it to happen quickly.

“If you don’t need me, you’ll be able to finish like this,” Illumi said, mirth lightening his tone. You opened an eye, fighting down the sounds you felt bubbling up in awful contradiction to the pain of the too strong vibrations. “If you can do that, I’ll allow you to leave whenever you want.”

He knew. Somehow, he knew that you wouldn’t be able to get off like this. You never told him, but he knew. Illumi was making that cruel promise on purpose. You shut your eyes back with a poorly concealed cry, biting your lip hard to try and distract from the building sensations.

“I-I can’t,” you told him in a keening voice a moment later. Your body seemed to think you could, pushing you towards your quickly approaching orgasm with enthusiasm. It truly was madness, because despite the evidence you had, some part of you strove for it. He’d taken it too fast for it to be a great orgasm, but the need was winding and burning and you could taste it, almost, your muscles tensing and bunching and hips pushing against the vibrator carelessly.

Maybe if you focused, maybe if you reached, if you really, really wanted it-

Your head  _hurt_ , an agonizingly sharp pain pounding against your forehead. As it had every other time you’d tried to get off without Illumi, it pushed you off of that ledge. No matter how much pleasure you felt, it wasn’t enough to stop that headache from striking right as you were about to come. Illumi had to put more strain on the harness as you wilted, crying and shaking from the painful let down, and the even worse shocks of pleasure that still teased you from the vibrator.

“Illumi-Please stop… Please, I can’t,” you told him in a hiccuping voice, opening your eyes to meet his in defeat.

“If you give up, you won’t be able to leave,” he reminded you, making you gasp when he changed the angle of the vibrator once more, “I’ll take it to mean that you aren’t capable.”

You shook your head, trying to twist away by yourself rather than respond, but that made Illumi push the vibrator harder against your already over-sensitive clit. Crying out, you nearly collapsed as your body shook, but Illumi still held you up, the ropes cutting into your skin.

“Is that what you want?” he prompted. A soft sound followed by a sob was your only response at first, but Illumi made a noise of frustration, turning down the intensity on the wand. It should have been what you wanted, but the loss made you whimper.

“No…” you whined, either in response to his question or to the change, you weren’t sure.

“Fine,” Illumi replied easily, turning it back up.

By the second time of being pushed to the very edge before being stopped by the headache, you changed your mind. You were begging him to stop, telling Illumi that you gave up. By the third, you were flushed red and slick with sweat and tears, barely able to actually speak in your desperation. You tried anyway, head bursting and body aching for release.

“Lu-mi…” you managed between sobbing gasps, “Can’t… I need you.. Please.”

He turned off the wand, finally, finally, finally.

“You admit that you aren’t capable, then,” Illumi said lightly.

“Yes,” you agreed, nodding desperately as you looked into his dark and expressionless eyes. It didn’t matter what you were or weren’t at this point, you couldn’t handle the headache or this burning desire. “Please, ‘lumi.. I need you, please,” you begged.

“Good,” he said with a hint of happiness in his tone, letting you fall back onto the bed. Your legs burned, your whole body shook with aches and the cramping of trembling muscles, and your skin was rubbed raw where the robes were. None of that mattered at all while you watched Illumi undress, pulling a rough whimper of need from your throat. He fell over you, catching himself on one elbow while the other hand lined himself up with your entrance. Wet, you were so wet it was almost shocking.

You expected Illumi to push into you right away, to fix everything by fucking you like you needed, but he teased it out a second longer, watching your expression with an impassive look.

“Illumi,  _pleease_ ,” you begged pathetically, far past any amount of shame. He didn’t move even slightly, so close to giving you what you wanted. Then, he spoke, his voice holding an odd sort of fervor that didn’t at all match the light tone.

“Tell me how much you love me.”

And,  _of course,_  you did.


	59. Feitan Portor Soulmate AU

At what point did coincidence become a pattern? The bruises you’d gotten from the man whose face was now painted across your tv screen had yet to fade as you watched the news with an a sinking feeling of horror.

The first time this had happened, you’d written it off. Twice, strange, but not impossible. Now, the third time a person you had interacted with recently wound up dead not long after, you had to admit that there was something very, very wrong.

It wasn’t only these three that were victims to whatever curse you’d brought, either, they were just the ones you noticed. With an awful feeling and an online search, you’d learned that before you cared enough to watch the news, two other people you had interacted with were killed soon after.

Turning off the tv with a sick feeling in your stomach, you bent in half, your face falling into your hands. The movement hurt the bruises on your ribs, but you didn’t mind the pain. It was a reminder of reality, helping you clear your head enough to think.

The connecting thread between all the ‘unrelated’ victims was you, trying to deny that now was impossible. Two of the victims were men you had been sparring partners with, and the other three were ones who you had been minorly friendly or flirtatious with. All of the men. All of them dead. No, murdered. The news called the criminal a spree killer. Five men in a little over two weeks was one hell of a spree.

So what did you do with that information? If you contacted the police, they’d either call it coincidence or, even worse, believe that you were involved somehow. If you told your friends, what would they do? In your mind, you imagined them telling you that it was in your head, scoffing at the ridiculousness of the idea that people were being killed around you.

And it was ridiculous, there was no doubt about that. None of the victims were really close to you in any capacity, so the link seemed like a bit of a stretch. All you had was feeling and a string of coincidence that could be written off.  But you couldn’t.

Where did that leave you? If you were to accept that this had happened because of you, it begged a question you really didn’t want to ask: Why would someone kill people around you? The answer, you knew, was even worse than the question.

»»————-　　

Despite your penchant for fighting, you weren’t an aggressive person. More than anything, you were energetic and easily bored. You felt as if you couldn’t help it. To fight, to hurt and be hurt, was to feel alive, and your heart ached for that satisfaction more than anything. Your parents told you once that if you continued your life the way you chose, violence would find you in the worst of ways.

Would they laugh at you, now?

You began skipping out entirely on your after work trips to the gym, sickened by the idea that your sparring partner would be the next face broadcast as dead on the news. You lost all desire to be around any people, canceling plans with your increasingly confused friends in the hopes of minimizing the body count.

Just as frightening as the fear of people being killed because of you was the idea that someone was watching you. If someone had seen you with all of the victims, that meant they had been following you closely, managing to learn of your actions in private settings. Routine trips like going to work and walking to the grocery store made you jumpy, looking over your shoulder and across every street in search of the eyes you could swear you felt watching.

Ideas of going to the police or getting some kind of help were often in your mind, but you knew there was no evidence. What would they do for a woman scared of some imagined boogeyman?

And you were scared. It left you weak and drained, and sometimes you were sure your heart would give out from the amount of caffeine you had to consume to be functional when you could hardly ever get a decent night of sleep. You dreamed of awful things when you did manage it. You saw a monster that looked like a man standing in the dark, radiating malice and promising violence. In the morning, your left hand felt cold.

»»————-

It was a flash of seconds, maybe less, that you saw him.

You were being eaten by the crowd boarding the underground train, and he was standing outside the doors, leaning against the wall. Really, considering you stood heads and shoulders and occasionally chests shorter than most people, it was a miracle you managed to see him at all. Maybe it was fated.

Logically, you could say that he only struck you as special because of his strange appearance. Shiny dark hair, baggy clothes, and a skull emblazoned cowl pulled up over his mouth and nose. But, there was nothing logical about the feeling you got when you met his angular dark eyes, it was an intensely visceral reaction of an electric panic.

A feeling you recognized.

The crowd engulfed you and the doors shut, the train taking off and leaving the unnerving stranger standing in the station. You felt dizzy, a memory tugged free from a place in your mind you should have recalled sooner.

 

_Your skin was crawling, the feeling of an unfamiliar stare pushing you into a state of discomfort you hadn’t felt in, well, ever. Although you sat a table with your friends, they seemed blind to your discomfort and the awful sensation that plagued you, telling stories and knocking back drinks. You’d always been the most receptive to this sort of thing, perhaps it was your fighter’s instinct._

_Trying to be sly about it, you looked around the usual stomping grounds of your group, a charmingly dingy restaurant and bar. Mostly, everything seemed regular, normal, except-_

_When your gazes caught, your body stiffened oddly, breath catching. From over the top of the cowl the man had pulled over his face, his angular and intense eyes stared shameless and blatantly at you. Although he’d been the one caught in the wrong, you were the one to look away in embarrassment, cheeks flushing and heart pounding._

_You were an energetic person who enjoyed a fun and playful fight, but you knew danger when you saw it. How the entire restaurant didn’t feel the same anxiety you were suddenly filled with, you had no idea. Any other person, you’d be happy to tell off for being so rude, but him? You hoped you’d never have to directly interact with him in your life._

_Turning your back to him and trying to shake off your nerves -There was nothing he could do to you in this crowd, after all- you offered to go get more drinks. They hadn’t noticed your discomfort, but your friends certainly took notice of the offer for more alcohol. You didn’t intend to drink, but moving away from the range of his glare felt like a good idea._

_Standing at the bar, waiting for the bartender to get to you, you splayed your hands across the questionably clean surface, tapping your fingers in time to the music playing in an idle motion._

_A hand only a little bigger than your own pushed your palm flat on the surface, making you jump, gasping in shock. The stranger had managed to give you physical chills from across the room, but now he’d approached you without you even noticing. His hand was cold against yours, and uncomfortably firm. You got the idea that it wouldn’t be hard at all for him to simply crush the fine bones of your hand into dust._

_“What are you doing?” you demanded, trying to pull away in panicked fear, but he wasn’t even looking at you. Those unnerving dark and angular eyes were focused on your left hand unwaveringly. He wasn’t much taller than you, but that didn’t matter, the danger you felt rolled off of him in oppressive and dark waves._

_As quickly as he’d arrived at your side, the man swore in a language you didn’t know and stalked off without a backwards glance. You looked at him retreat with wide eyes, your heart pounding._

_Unable to process what had just happened at that moment, you got your drinks, deciding that you would have a few, after all. So, getting progressively drunker, you told your friends about the stranger and they laughed at the story. Eventually, you managed to laugh about it, too. Soon, that night was just a drunken memory of bar crawling and the awful hangover you endured the next day._

Standing there in the sweaty crowd on the train, the unwanted word finally materialized in your brain. You had a dangerous, murderous stalker.

»»————-

“Hey!” you turned curiously, watching a coworker of yours approach with a half jog as you were heading out for the day. He was a new hire. Cute, although just thinking that about a guy now made you feel guilty, as if the Stranger would know your thoughts.

Still you managed a smile.

“What’s up?” you asked.

“You’re off?” he asked, as if the bag on your arm didn’t make it clear.   
  
“Yep,” you replied anyway. He smiled bashfully.

“Yeah I guess that’s…” he laughed, an easy sound, “Well I just got off, too. I was wondering if you wanted to go get a drink or something?” His brow turned up hopefully, smiling at you in a charming way. The word yes was on your lips before guilt ate it up, making you feel a little sick. If the Stranger was watching or listening to this, what impression would he get? Nauseating nerves rolled through your stomach at the reminder of those dark and angular eyes, so different from the wide baby blues staring at you now.

“I can’t tonight, I’m sorry,” you said with a forced apologetic smile.

“Are you sure? I noticed that you seem a little down lately, maybe a drink will help,” he offered. Not in a clumsy and pushy way. Sweet. It made your heart clench with desire. Not the sexual kind, but out of the need for human company, for companionship.

“I’m really sorry, but I can’t,” you said again, looking away from his kind eyes, “I’ve, ah, gotta go.”

You ducked away, walking fast to avoid him asking anymore, anxiety twisting your stomach. Was that enough for the Stranger to kill him? You weren’t even sure if the Stranger would absolutely know about the conversation, considering it took place in the breakroom. But, he had known about other presumed ‘private’ conversations, too.

A quiet curse left your mouth as you left the building, walking out into the late afternoon sunlight and joining the crowd of people. Your breathing was too fast, bile rising in your throat as you contemplated the fact that you might have just damned another man to death.

You weren’t an aggressive person, but walking down the busy street, you suddenly felt very, very angry.

Was he following you, or were the eyes making your skin crawl of your own imagination? Either way, you stalked straight past the entrance for the train to take you home, working out some of the aggression in a search of a place you knew would be empty. This was stupid, you’d probably die, and you had absolutely no idea what to even do or say, but you were dead set on this course of action. The very least you could do was try.

Several blocks away from the train home you were currently missing, you turned into an empty back street, clutching the knife you’d surreptitiously slipped from your bag beneath your sleeve. You were going to die.  

“Are you there?” you called with a voice of strength despite that morbid thought, turning around to look for some sign of life. Could you feel something, someone? That someone, the stranger whose eyes haunted you. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re stalking me… K-killing because of me.”

You felt crazy. There was nobody there, you were shouting to an empty street, your voice bouncing off of the narrow walls. You’d gotten this far already, though, and so the words kept flowing, holding a hysterical edge.

“Why? Because you’re.. You’re, what, in love with me or something?” you asked, laughing in a breathless cough at the thought.

“Love? For a weak and stupid girl?” a voice spat in disdain behind you. You nearly jumped out of your skin, heart thundering in your chest. It was the voice of the Stranger, you knew it was despite never having heard him speak before. But, when you whipped around to look, he was not the one standing behind you. In fact, there was nobody ‘standing’.

Not more than twenty minutes ago he’d asked you out with a sweet smile, but now his face was pale and disfigured, caught in a look of surprise with blankly staring eyes. Just a head, separated carelessly from his body and dropped to the loose gravel.

You screamed in disgusted shock, the sound muffled as you bit it off. There was no time to react in panic, you pushed down the first rush of emotion to allow yourself to act. Without even thinking about it, you flipped out the knife and spun around, knowing on an instinctual level that the Stranger was behind you.

There was no real effort he had to put into grabbing your arm and twisting it, pushing you against the wall before you had even the slightest chance against him. You’d guessed at it before, but you realized right then how seriously outclassed you were.

“What?” he asked with a mocking tone, pushing up further on your arm and making you whimper sharply, dropping the knife into the gravel, “Not going to fight now?”

“He didn’t deserve to die,” you said, tears sprung in your eyes from the pain of having your arm jerked so far up, as well as in mourning for the boy whose head you knew was still laying unceremoniously on the ground behind you.

“You liked him? How sad for you,”

“I barely knew him,” you spat, turning your head so you could see the Stranger from the corner of your eye, “There was no reason for you… for you to kill him.”

“I kill people who want to steal from me,” the Stranger said bluntly in his odd accent.

“Steal?” you asked, blinking quickly, “What, steal me?” you asked with another wave of hysteria. The Stranger jerked your arm again, so close to breaking it. You bit your lip hard. At least physical pain was something you knew how to handle.

“Tch, don’t get full of yourself,” he replied, “I should kill you.”

“Kill me?” you asked, blood running cold. That was a conclusion you’d expected, wasn’t it? But to have him say it like that was different. You felt all the energy inside of you condense, your body tensing in a way that only made his grip on your arm more painful. You didn’t care, it helped you clear your mind. “There was a reason you did all of this,” you said in a careful voice, “Why kill me now?”

“You don’t want to die?” he asked, that cruel humor sharpening his words.

“No,” you responded, a slightly choked word. 

The Stranger hummed, a pleased sound.

“Chrollo keeps his like a pet,” he told you tauntingly, “Is that better? Would you prefer that?”

“I… I don’t understand,” you replied, unable to make sense of nothing but the world ‘pet’. He cursed, the same sound from when he touched your hand all those nights ago at the bar.

“Stupid like  _her,_ ” he inhaled sharply, then paused, “We’re Soulmates. Connected by fate. You’ll come with me, or die. Choose now.” To emphasize his point, he finally released your arm, only to have a blade at your neck in the same second.

Your mind spent a fraction of a second in shock before beginning to whirl in terrified confusion. Soulmates… Fate… He was insane. Considering you knew this man to have killed at least six people under the excuse that they were trying to steal from him, it was probably strange that this was the first moment you realized that he was actually, truly out of his mind.

But he wasn’t bluffing. Although the blade hadn’t cut your skin yet, you knew that he wasn’t lying about killing you.

“ _I’ll go with you_ ,” you choked out, relenting before he could get upset and slit your throat.

“A pity,” he said, pulling the knife from your neck. You turned and met his dark and angular eyes, your non-sore arm feeling at your neck tenderly. The expression in his gaze was enough to make you realize how big of a mistake you’d made. Beneath the cowl, he was smiling. “Death would be nicer.”


	60. Chrollo Lucilfer Prompt: “You look frightened. Never had someone take your control away, little one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just remembered I changed the prompt line a little, whoops

The face of the man who had carelessly killed your family was distorted into a frightening image in the red lights that served as the only illumination in the abandoned building he’d agreed to use as the battlefield for this fight. 

A False God, a rotten man who deemed himself fit to deal in life or death. The devil you’d trained to kill, the one you’d searched for without rest in the years since he and his pack of demons senselessly slaughtered your family for the only sin of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To hellish creatures of their type, your family had only been collateral damage, without the worth to even steal from.

“Chrollo Lucilfer,” you called, your voice carried in the sprawling echo of the low ceilinged abandoned building, “You’ve taken countless lives, but that’s not… Not why I’m going to kill you.”

It was a bad start for your voice to waver like that, so you steadied yourself by calling upon your sword, the weapon materializing lightly in your hand. The empty gems shined, you could feel their hunger. Sin Eater, you’d named her, and there was no greater sinner than the man in front of you.

“You’re here for revenge,” Chrollo said knowingly, his round eyes that flashed with the reflection of the red lights focusing on your weapon in interest, “For your family?” he took your unconscious flinch as a yes, continuing confidently, “Considering your age… Your parents?”

You swallowed hard on the anger his presumptuous words filled you with, your grip tightening on your weapon and chin raising.

“I love my parents,” you agreed in a voice more steady that you could have believed, “But that’s not why…” you paused, focusing on the words you’d practiced so many times, a monologue that had repeated in your head since that day, “My younger brother Jack was an innocent, in every sense. You killed him.”

You stopped, letting that set in the damp air for a second.

“You can’t even remember it, can you. You were the one to decide whether he should be allowed to live or die without even knowing him enough to pass judgement,” you paused, taking a deep breath and using your off hand to grasp the rosary around your neck for strength, “You are a false God, Chrollo Lucilfer. That is an unforgivable sin.”

Chrollo looked at you in a moment of silence that sent chills down your spine. Then, he laughed. It was an easy sound, filled with something like delight. It filled you with uneasy anger before you could force the feeling down, emotions like that would only push you off balance.

“I see,” he said, trace amounts of humor in his voice, “Does that make you a vengeful angel?”

He was mocking you, but the words still filled you with self loathing.

“No, I’m…”  _a sinner, too_. You shook your head, raising Sin Eater. It was time, you’d waited so long for this, to do anything less now would be a sin on the same scale as the horrible man in front of you. Heart pounding, the unwanted course of adrenaline threatening to unsteady you, you met his eyes and sent a prayer to God for strength and protection, a prayer to your dead family in Heaven.

And stabbed Sin Eater into your own chest.

There was no need to pierce the heart directly, but you were fairly certain you had anyway, pushing the blade through your body before your sense of self preservation could stop you. With all the strength you had left, you pulled her out with shaking hands. The silvery blade emerged clean of any blood or gore, and there was no wound or rip in your shirt despite the hollow agony you could still feel inside you. It would fade, it always did.

You pressed your free hand to the place that should have sported a gaping wound, raising Sin Eater to admire that gem on the hilt was no longer empty, swirling with power. After having stabbed yourself so many times, it had gotten easier. The pain, at least, was easier to bear. Another kind of motivation, another driving force.

Vindicated and cleansed by pain, you rushed at your opponent, strength bolstered by the connection of mind and blade, by hunger and by faith.  

Chrollo summoned no weapon, dodging from each attack without even attempting to go on the offence. He didn’t block either. Waiting, watching with his piercing gaze. You finally relented, jumping backwards to study him in turn, your breathing coming in quick and angry bursts.

“That sword was charged by your Nen. If you stabbed me, it would drain me of my Nen. Am I correct?” he asked lightly, not seeming even slightly winded.

Killing your family, fighting you, Chrollo Lucilfer truly had no regard for life. And those stony eyes, reflecting red and shadowed eerily, pierced your skin like a knife, pushing deep and leaving you cold despite the heat of exertion flushing your cheeks.

“Why aren’t you fighting?” you asked in place of answering, pushing down your discomfort and upset at his attitude, narrowing your eyes. Perhaps in protection of your fresh fear and anger, a taunt came to mind before you could stop it, leaving your mouth with a honest disgust, “Was it too much to expect a False God to have honor?”

Chrollo didn’t react to your taunt with any upset, instead, he laughed at your words with even more apparent amusement. The cruelty of him finding enjoyment in your disgust and fear made you flinch.

“How fascinating…” he mused, “You told me the name of your brother, will your tell me yours?” Chrollo asked, holding a hand up in offering. Your eyes narrowed, stomach twisting.

“No. I won’t let you defile one of the last things my parents left me,” you spat, using hatred to cover the other feelings brought on by this minor shift in tension.

“Defile…” he repeated, tasting the word with a small smile, “Very well.” Chrollo raised his hand, a book materializing into it within seconds, pages flipping on their own. A conjurer’s ability then, like yours. At least he was taking you seriously now. You steadied your breath and stance, raising Sin Eater once more.

Fearful determination was encouraging your movements now, combined with a reservation born of the nervous lack of understanding what his Hatsu might be. But the stakes were raised too high to hesitate, lending even more weight to your steps as you ran towards him, keeping to the endless training you’d done in preparation for this moment. Close, so close, you were definitely going to hit him and then-

You didn’t. Chrollo moved with a speed even faster than before, inhumanly fast. In what felt like the exact same second, you were stopped dead in your tracks.

Choking.

Your built up momentum pushed your neck against something that was pressed to your throat. At first you thought a garrote of cold metal, but then a clasp clicked behind your neck and Chrollo’s hands were gone. You spun around on your heel with Sin Eater slashing in a wide arc to face him, your off-hand’s fingers already grasping at the cold metal in panic.

There were two things that registered at the same time. The thing on your neck -a thin-chained necklace?- was full of Nen, and Chrollo was closing his Conjured book, the paged marked. That meant that it was a Nen attack that you neither understood or knew how to counter. The fear of the unknown in tandem of the scare of choking sent you lashing out with no thought, running at him without grace or art. Chrollo didn’t flinch, looking you calmly with his cool and collected gaze.

“Stop,” he said lightly.

Your body reacted before your wild thoughts even registered the words. It wasn’t a choice you consciously made, your limbs simply gave out the second you heard the command. The built up momentum sent you toppling onto the dirty concrete, painfully crashing to the hard floor like a stringless puppet. Sin Eater fell from your loose fingers, scattering away and out of your limp grasp. She dismissed a second later while you watched, your head aching from the way it had slammed to the ground and gaze fixed at an angle where you couldn’t even see Chrollo.

You couldn’t move. Panicked alarm matched the speed of your rapid heart, pounding against your skull in a frantic beat. Every sense you had screamed at you to get up, to move, to take on a position that wasn’t so agonizingly uncomfortable, anything. Anything! But you couldn’t.

Chrollo’s hands were firm as he gathered you up like a rag doll while crouching beside you. Your aching head lolled heavily against the hand he used to support it as your terrified eyes met his. This chain necklace was a Manipulator’s ability, wasn’t it? But you saw him clearly use a Conjurer power. The questions formed in your mind, but couldn’t be pushed to voice by your deadened tongue and lips. He smiled, meeting your terrified eyes with his unreadable gaze.

“You look frightened,” Chrollo said with a sweetly mirthful tone, “Never had someone take your control away, little angel?”

Your mind screamed, the sound building in your chest, but there was no release. Your mouth stayed closed. The scream stayed trapped.

“The original owner named the ability Override Command,” Chrollo told you with a sardonic half smile, “He enjoyed the misery and eventual madness created by trapping a person’s mind in their body while their actions were determined entirely by another person.”

Tears were in your eyes without any control on your part, hot and stinging. 

“Don’t worry,” he said gently, watching the fear dance in your gaze, “I don’t want to drive you mad. Unlike him, I find the mind much more interesting when it’s in tact.” 

With a gesture you could almost call gentle, Chrollo adjusted you to be supported by just one arm while the other lifted a strand of hair that had fallen over your face, sliding his fingers across the loose piece with his eyes following the motion in interest before letting it fall. 

“Your precious parents left you your name, but that’s not all, is it?” his eyes flicked back to yours, “They left you your mind, your body, your very soul… What will they think when you allow a False God to defile you?”


	61. Pariston Hill + Ingénue Part 2

That night, Pariston smiled as he told you that he’d decided to wait, helping you from the counter. That night, you went home, stepping over the glass and wine on shaking legs as you left Pariston’s apartment with a dazed head and the distinct sensation that you’d done something unforgivable. That night, you sat in the shower until the water pounding on your back was icy cold and your skin was scrubbed red.

The next day you woke up like usual for work. Already, thoughts were arranging and rearranging in your head. Last night… Well, it was a misunderstanding, wasn’t it? Pariston wouldn’t have done anything on purpose to make you uncomfortable, and he hadn’t hurt you. It was just a misunderstanding, you’d probably led him to the wrong conclusions. The things he had said were already buried deep in your mind, the only remains of his actions being an awful dirty sensation between your legs

It had been a nice date. Anything that happened… Well, it was better to just move on with your day, wasn’t it? You arrived on time for work with an empty feeling in your stomach and a headache from not having slept much the night before, but you forced a smile for your coworkers, wishing all of them a good morning and drinking a cup of coffee in place of your usual tea.

When Ray, a friend and coworker who sat across your desk cluster, asked what was wrong, it surprised you. Truthfully, you thought you had been doing a good job of pretending, it wasn’t like you wanted anyone to worry for you. But his concerned expression made your chest tighten, the desire to confide in him welling up on your lips, but instead you smiled and shrugged.

“I’m just tired,” you told him, luckily able to manage an upbeat tone, “But thank you for asking!” 

Before he could respond, someone else cut in.

“Oh? Did you not sleep well?” a familiar voice asked from behind you, startling you and making your heart race. Ray instantly turned back to his computer to remove himself from the conversation, as most people did when Pariston Hill was around. Except for you. 

So you stood up and turned around with the best smile you could give him, filled with an excess of jittery energy that hit your previously exhausted system as if the caffeine had finally kicked in all in one burst. It made your hands shake, your stomach clenching around the unwanted beating of butterfly wings.

“Not especially…” you said, eyes raising to meet his.

Pariston looked, as always, completely perfect. Smiling and golden. It was hard for you to stare at him directly, a particularly hot breed of embarrassment making you want to shrink back from his gaze. Still, you hated to think that he’d see you as rude, especially after last night. You very much wanted him to like you, so you pushed yourself into a more cheerful disposition, managing to widen your smile a bit.

“It’s really okay, though… Ah, how are you?” you asked in a sweeter tone. Then you noticed something else. He was holding a bouquet of white roses, matching the the white brocade of his jacket.

“I’m doing wonderful!” Pariston said enthusiastically, oblivious to your shy embarrassment, “I thought I’d come to tell you that I had a very nice time at dinner last night…  _And, of course, afterwards_ ,” he added in a lower tone. Your jaw nearly dropped in surprise. When he said it like that, it sounded terribly inappropriate, and all of your coworkers could hear him, too. You could feel the burn of their stares. Pariston continued in an excited tone, as if unaware, “I wanted to give you something to thank you for being such a lovely date.” He extended the roses to you, which you slowly reached out to accept.

“Thank you,” you told him stiffly, cheeks blazing and hands shaking as you held the bouquet.

“Of course! White roses suit you very well,” Pariston told you, making your face burn for another reason. How could a flower suit someone, and why did that compliment made your heart skip? “I’m afraid I can’t stay for long, but I’ll be back later so we can go to lunch. Do you have a preference in restaurants?”

“What?” you asked, taken aback by the sudden shift.

“Although… You probably don’t eat uptown very often. That’s okay! I’ll show you my favorite place. Don’t forget! I’ll be back to collect you at one,” Pariston began to turn around, leaving you in a stupor, before turning back to you, “Oh! Remember to put the flowers in water… It would be a terrible shame to allow them to be ruined before they could even be properly enjoyed.”

With that final line and a wide smile, Pariston turned to leave. You watched him go without saying anything, your mind whirling as you tried to sort everything out. People were still looking at you. so you quickly sat down and bowed your head, putting the flowers on your desk while you tried to focus on something else, anything else.

After such a big start, the morning passed at a snail’s pace, crawling along minute by agonizing minute. Once enough time had past that you felt brave enough to attract any sort of attention, you found something in the kitchen to put the flowers in, displaying them on your desk. They were awfully pretty, but somehow the sweet smell of them was enough to make you feel sick.

You knew everyone was curious about the things Pariston said, but nobody dared approach you. Instead they looked at you out of the corner of their eyes, people you would consider friends whispering amongst themselves. That was the effect Pariston had on people, being such a controversial figure in the Association, but it made you feel lonely and, even worse, embarrassed.

By lunch, the stifled discomfort, scent of the roses, and small snippets of hushed conversations had become overwhelming. You resolved to go to Pariston’s office and politely refuse his offer for lunch before he could come back to pick you up. 

It was for the best, office relationships weren’t usually spoken of positively, and you weren’t sure if you wanted the same things he did in a relationship.

That was reasonable and adult. If you were polite and kind about it, he would surely be able to understand. You felt confident in your decision as you asked his secretary if you could enter and she waved you though, as you opened his door and stepped in.

Pariston was already putting things up behind his desk as you approached, looking up at you with surprised brown eyes. They sparkled in the afternoon sun filtering in through the window, as did his messy blond hair. He looked very handsome, and not at all threatening, but that only made you nervous, a little bit.

“Oh? Are you so excited you couldn’t wait for me to come get you?” Pariston asked with a smile, standing up. You naturally returned his smile, despite the discomfort you felt, shuffling from foot to foot uncertainly.

“Um.. I just came to tell you that I… I really had fun last night, and I’m very grateful you invited me out, but I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for us to… “ you trailed off, trying to think of a word.

Date? Was that too presumptuous? Go out? That was technically accurate, but perhaps that sounded too juvenile. What did you call what had happened last night? You didn’t want to think of that, not now.

“Oh dear,” Pariston said, having walked around the desk to stand in front of you while you’d been distracted. You blinked, surprised at how close he was.  “Did I embarrass you this morning?” He looked concerned, eyebrows up and his lips turned down. 

That look was something you reacted to without any consideration, a knee jerk feeling of guilt at causing his concern. You waved your hands to soothe him, shaking your head in denial.

“No, no, that’s not it!” you assured frantically, “It’s just..” 

Pariston took a step closer, making your breath catch and words trail off.

“Yes?” he asked innocently.

“Just that..” Whatever words you meant to say, the explanation or excuse you intended, died somewhere between your brain and your mouth when Pariston took another step.

He was close enough that you had to look up to meet his eyes, your nose filling with the scent of his cologne. His expression of worry was changed by the small smile on his lips. It made your heart flip oddly, fresh butterflies pounding against your ribs. You wanted to leave, or back up, or even just look away, but you felt frozen in place.

“I hope I didn’t scare you too much last night,” Pariston told you with sweet concern, “I’d hate to let a little teasing change your opinion of me. After all, I’ve come to like you so much, and trust is the very foundation of a healthy relationship, don’t you think?” he asked, imploring you to agree with his lovely eyes.

“Teasing?” you asked quietly, confused by his words and even more so by the feelings swirling inside you. Your stomach was turning at the thought of last night, but a different sensation had sparked up within you. It was accompanied by guilty fear, but you still felt the pressure between your thighs when your eyes lingered too long on his lips.

“Yes, of course,” Pariston said, his eyebrows raising, “I was only playing with you a little to help you relax,” he paused, his smile growing, “And, well… It did seem like you enjoyed it quite a bit…”

You stared up at him with wide eyes, cheeks flushing in shame.

“I…” you trailed off, unable to come up with anything to say among the roil of conflicting thoughts in your mind. Teasing? The kiss… His touch…  

“Eh? Am I wrong?” Pariston asked, his head tilting and a look of confusion erasing that smile. 

That change allowed you to finally look away, letting out a breath to try and calm yourself, shaking your head slightly. Was he wrong? You were inclined to say yes on an instinct of shame, but… 

“My, my, I’ve upset you again, haven’t I…” Pariston interrupted your thoughts with a distressed tone. Then he soothed it over with a bashful laugh, “All I meant was that I think there might have been a miscommunication… If that’s the case, won’t you allow me to make it up to you? I would be very honored if you allowed me the pleasure of your company again.” 

You bit you lip, thinking hard but knowing there was only one conclusion. You couldn’t reject Pariston now, not when you could feel his gaze on your skin and after you’d heard his explanation. It made sense if it had been nothing more than a misunderstanding, didn’t it? Perhaps you had blown the whole thing out of proportion in the first place. It made you feel rather childish.

“If we.. If we date,” you said, looking back into his eyes. Pariston seemed so genuine now. Looking into his eyes, you fully decided that was okay to trust him.  “I don’t want to.. Move so quickly.”

He smiled, looking delighted at your words.

“Of course, of course, I wouldn’t want to push you into anything you didn’t like,” Pariston said enthusiastically. You couldn’t help but return his smile, feeling a bit better.

A misunderstanding, nothing more. Why would he purposely hurt you?

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea to go to lunch,” you said, feeling guilty at the way his expression fell into a pout, moving to quickly explain, “People are talking about me… Us, and I… I’m not embarrassed, but it makes things very uncomfortable for everyone.”

“Really?” Pariston asked. “That’s fine, I suppose. I’ll excuse you from lunch,” his pout became a smile, a playful look, “On one condition.”

“A condition?” you asked.

“A kiss,” he said, his smile growing, “That’s okay, isn’t it? I wonder what you thought I would ask for to warrant such a worried look…” 

“You sometimes say strange things, is all,” you told him honestly, glad he’d asked for something so normal “A kiss is.. Is okay.” People who dated usually kissed each other goodbye, but kissing reminded you of last night. It hadn’t been a goodbye kiss, or even a kiss between lovers. You could easily recall the suffocating feeling of it, the crashing of the storm.    

“Oh, are you still shy?” Pariston asked as you hesitated, “How cute… It’s okay if you’re unsure for now,” he said, gently guiding your face up by pushing his fingers softly through your hair. It was nothing like last night. You forced yourself to relax into his touch, letting your eyes flutter shut. There, your faces not even an inch from each other, he spoke,        

“You’re going to be mine,” Pariston told you sweetly, his tone low and honeyed, “All mine.“


	62. Pariston Hill + Mafia AU

Stress was a thing of the daytime. Of the sun. Of the garish and resentful sun that dictated your life. It was the light that woke you up from scant hours of sleep and prompted you to go to classes for a degree you weren’t sure you wanted. It illuminated the hours you spent working on endless amounts of homework and studying in order to keep the scholarship you absolutely could not lose. The sunlit hours were the ones in which you were forced to try and make a home of the broken dynamic between you and your father, listening to his lecturing and expectations, the rules he enforced for allowing you to live with him.

You listened and agreed, you followed his rules, you met his expectations. You got good grades, made dinner every night, and didn’t let yourself get caught up in college parties or boys.

But the face of heaven, decorated with the gentle glow of the moon and the jewel-like arrangement of glittering stars, was, as the line went, so fine. It was in the dark that you felt free. Free of expectations and stress, free of the confining rules that dictated your life. You followed your father’s rules, yes…  With one expectation.

When the cruel restlessness of insomnia tempted you to the beauty of the night, you didn’t resist. If you father found you donning a sweater and sneakers, sneaking out through your window and climbing down the fire escape, he’d likely kick you out. But he didn’t understand what it was to love, not with a person or a passing interest, but with the night itself.

It was one of the few peaceful moments you were afforded in your life, since you couldn’t find any real rest in sleep, and certainly not whenever the sun was glaring at you from on high. Walking through the night was a time only for you, for your mind to wander and dream without limits. You didn’t fear the night, as you had been taught, but allowed it to embrace you in its comforting arms. You didn’t expect betrayal, but Romeo and Juliet was, after all, a tragedy.

If you hadn’t been distracted, utterly absorbed in the void of your own thoughts as you slid between the broken part of fence that allowed you to use the back area of some nightclub as a shortcut in getting home, you might have picked up on the warning signs. The smell of fresh cigarette smoke, sounds that were dulled by the constant noise and physically thudding bass that oozed out from the sturdy walls of the club building, maybe you even could have picked up on the tension in the air.

As it was, you noticed none of these things until you were past the hole in the fence, coming to a sudden halt while still hidden in the shadows and thin vegetation as your previously distracted eyes landed on the figures standing in the pool of light near the club’s back door.

Seeing something strange, something out of the ordinary, people where you had never encountered them before, sent you into a panic before your brain could even process the imagery presented to you. It made your mind ring with alarm bells, setting your heart to a racing beat and filling you with the cold feeling of anxiety that had you frozen to the spot.

Two men were standing underneath the stark pool of light-

No, you realized with a sick feeling. There was three. One against the wall, smoking, and one with his back to you. You’d missed the third at first because he wasn’t standing. Rather, he was helplessly toppled onto the ground, his face hidden from view by the legs of the second man and his arms awkwardly bound beneath him. Brokenly injured, the harsh light allowed you to see the unnatural position he was in, as well as the splotchy mixture of fresh and half-dried blood dying his clothes in gruesome a pattern.

It painted a picture you weren’t intimately familiar with, but one you understood. You’d heard the horror stories of crime in these areas, but you’d never expected to stumble upon anything bad. Why would you expect betrayal from the one pleasure in your life?

Shock and dread rendered you still, unable to move even as every instinct you had screamed to run back the way you came, to flee before they could notice their witness. But you couldn’t move, barely daring to breath in fear that you’d call their attention.

“It doesn’t make me happy to have to do this, you know,” the man with his back to you said in a clear and decidedly remorselessly cheerful voice, the sound rebounding slightly against the surrounding walls and making you flinch back. He was holding a cane by a handle that winked gold when it caught the light, a suitable match to the fancy suit he was wearing, and even his hair, which shone with a flaxen hue. Despite the smoking man being far more intimidating in stature, he was the one you felt afraid of. The one in control. The boss, your mind provided.

A painful muffled sound that might have been words was the man on the ground’s only response, his entire body heaving in a futile writhing motion. You didn’t notice it until a second after that your sweaty hands had risen to cover your mouth in horror, your entire body shaking.

In complete juxtaposition to your fear, the guy on the wall was completely casual, putting out his cigarette without concern, dismissively grinding it underfoot before leaning back.

“I know, I know,” the boss soothed the man beneath him with a condescending regret, as if he were speaking to a child, “But, if I were to let you get away with this, other people would think that they could steal from me, too,” his voice became cooler, harder, “I understand you’re not very bright, but surely even you can see why that might be a problem for me.”

All the man did was groan, a heavy and hopeless sound. The boss picked up his cane, sliding his hand across the wood to hold it by the wrong end. Somehow, you could feel the energy shift, and so could the crying man, his panicked noises becoming more insistent.

You needed to leave, you really really needed to leave, you-

“Men like you are very boring… It’s not even fun to play with you,” the boss said with a disappointed tone, a sickening finality to the sound. Standing completely stiff in terror, you watched him press his foot to the man’s chest to keep him down, earning a pained and broken shout in response, and lower his cane. You didn’t understand at first, but as the man’s broken body struggled, awful and ugly choked sounds filling the air, it came together.

You were watching someone die as a spectator, as little more than a perverted voyeur. Unable to look away, unable to find it within yourself to run, and even unable to step in and attempt to save a human life. It seemed to take a hideous eternity, the only sounds that of the dying man and the background noises of the club. Iron was a tangy flavor in your throat, your hands still pressed to your face as you continued to watch, blinking tears that might have come from any number of the frenzied and panicked emotions swirling within your mind.

Eventually the man fell still, and a stretch of seconds or minutes or hours or years after that, the boss stepped away, flipping his cane to rights and wiping off the handle of his cane with a handkerchief.

“Ahh!” he sighed heavily, a lighthearted sound, as if murdering someone was nothing more than an arduous task that he was relieved to have finished. Then, making your blood chill, he laughed. “Maybe I shouldn’t have wasted my time,” he said with a lighthearted regret, “I hoped he’d be more fun…” he turned to the larger man, who had stood up now that it was over, “Take him-”

The boss cut off suddenly, sharply, because when he stepped away, you got a look at the dead man’s face. Bloated and bruised, swollen beyond facial comprehension. It wasn’t a gag that had made him unable to speak or cry out, but the ruin of his own face. The sight made you gasp out loud without even thinking, an unconscious sound made from the most base and visceral reaction to disgust and absolute horror you’d ever felt.

And then you had two sets of eyes and a quickly drawn gun focused on you.

“My, my… What’s this?” the boss asked casually. He was smiling as he looked towards your compromised hiding spot, an expression at complete odds with the violence the muscle bound man at his side promised. 

A beat of silence passed, filled only by the thunderous roar of your heartbeat.

“It seems we have an uninvited guest,” the boss said in amusement, “Come out from there… I promise not to hurt you,” he said, the seemingly kind words given a dark twist considering everything else you’d just seen and the smile he still wore.

You truly felt as if you couldn’t breathe, your entire body rebelling against the multitude of conflicting emotions and instincts. There was too much to deal with, so you’d done the worst thing and done nothing at all. The chance for flight was missed, and you certainly couldn’t fight. Where did that leave you?

Shuffling forward, it turned out, doing as he said because you had no other options.

“Oh?” the boss said in surprise when he could fully see you, “If you will, take care of him. I can handle this,” he told the other man, his eyes not leaving you. 

The man reluctantly holstered his gun, glaring at you with distrust, but did as he was told without complaint. You watched as he easily scooped up the broken body and tossed it - _him, that was a person, a human man_ \- over his shoulder and went to the gate of the back area, just as casually as he’d been with the cigarette. Carrying a corpse in the most natural way possible. You felt like you were going to be sick, your stomach loosening and tightening in painful knots.

“My, my, my…” the boss in front of you said, calling your wide-eyed attention back to him as he stepped closer, “Why would a cute little girl be wandering around this part of town at such a late hour?”

You took a half step back, but froze before settling your weight, hyper sensitive to the shift in tension and the darkening of his shadowed eyes at your movement. Scrambling for a response to the question you had barely been able to listen to, it took a moment for words to finally make their way past your lips, the truth coming up before the filter of your brain could interfere.

“I couldn’t sleep,” you answered in a pinched and dazed voice. The other man and the corpse were gone. You were all alone. The boss, the murderer, took a step closer, his face becoming obscured completely by the light behind him. The hand not holding the cane raised and made you flinch, his finger pointed as if to lecture you.

“You know,” he told you in an exaggerated tone of worry, “It’s not safe this time of night for a girl like you to be out walking alone. There’s a lot of bad men in this area who might think to take advantage of you… And, well,” his voice lowered, sweetening in a way that made your spine tingle, “There’s always the chance that you’ll see something you shouldn’t.”

Your eyes shot up to meet his shadowed ones, wide and imploring, filled with panic.

“I didn’t see anything,” you said quickly, fearfully, “Really, I-I…” you trailed off, your snarl of incomprehensible thoughts tripping you up, the sound of your heartbeat overwhelming.

“See what?” the boss asked, sounding completely innocent and confused, the blond halo of his messy hair tilting when his head fell to the side.

For a second, the genuine honesty in his question made you doubt yourself, reality trembling within the confines of your overburdened mind.

“Nothing,” you finally replied, your voice choked. Then you let out a breath, trying to ground yourself enough to speak, to act upon the basic human impulse to escape danger, “Anyway, you’re-you’re right… I really should.. I need to get going before someone worries that I’m gone,” you got out clumsily. Your lie about anyone worrying for you cracked slightly. Could he notice? Did he hear?

There was no indication, either because you couldn’t see his expression very well or because he had a perfected poker face. Both, maybe.

“Oh? Is it safe for you walk back by yourself? If it’s far, I could drive you,” he offered with a sweet concern, “I wouldn’t want the unthinkable to happen…”

“N-no!” you said, maybe a bit too loudly, “I live really close, it’ll be fine… Thank you,” you added, forcing a more moderate tone so as to not sound disrespectful. Was he serious about just letting you leave? After all you’d seen? A sliver of hope wormed its way into your heart. “I’ll be… I’ll be going then,” you said, pointing back to the way you came, asking for permission. No, begging to be spared.

“Of course,” he responded with a smile you could barely make out, “Be careful.”

“Thanks,” you replied, habitual manners kicking in as you retreated at an angle so you could keep him in sight. He stood as the sole figure in the unlit side street, a frightening and faceless outline of a man.

No, not entirely faceless, you could still see the faint white glitter of his wide smile. Shining, complementing the golden halo of hair, and terrifying.

And then you were running.

It didn’t matter that this way was longer, you didn’t care about your bodies exhaustion as your feet pounded down the mostly empty streets, your lungs burning and heart hammering painfully against your ribs, your dry mouth filling with the taste of blood. You tripped twice, skinning your knee and both hands, but that didn’t stop you.

When you finally reached home, you didn’t hesitate in swinging up the fire escape, climbing quickly despite how hard your body was shaking, despite your sweaty and bloody palms.

Even once you’d crawled back in through your window, shutting it harshly and locking it, pulling down your curtains to hide from the moon and any prying eyes, you didn’t feel safe. How could you? Were you? He’d let you go, but what if they found you? What if he changed his mind?

_What if he killed you, too?_

Unable to get air into your agonizing lungs, your heart racing with the leftover adrenaline, sporting dirty and painful wounds, and covered in sweat, you didn’t notice that you were crying right away. Not until you were sobbing in ugly heaving breaths you didn’t have to spare and covered in the additional wet mess made by tears and snot, laying on your floor and staring at the window as if it was the evil itself.

What you had seen flashed in quick bursts through your mind. The victim’s dying struggle, his ruined face, the guy casually putting out his cigarette, and that smile. The man’s friendly voice rang in your ears over the chug of blood in your ears, his sweet and approachable voice that complained about murder being inconvenient and warned you against bad men.

The hours wore on long that night, sleep feeling farther away than ever before.

But the sun rose that morning anyway, and by then your tears had run dry. A freezing cold shower didn’t make the swelling of your face, muscle spasms, or nasty scrapes any better, and pain killers didn’t make a dent in your headache, but life had to move on.

During the night, you had decided a few things. You weren’t going to tell anyone. There was no point, and if your father found out that you’d been going for walks most nights, he would certainly kick you out. Besides, what could anybody do? You doubted even the police could do something, considering the lack of evidence. Or so you told yourself to soothe the guilt of doing nothing. But, selfishness in the name of self preservation was already a sin you were tainted by, your passive viewing as a man was murdered right in front of you the worst of it all. 

Selfishly, cowardly, you decided that you were going to try and forget, to put it from your mind and pray to any God there was that he wouldn’t track you down again. That it was over.

Going to your morning class was one of the most stressful few hours of your life. Your eyes constantly flicked around in search of messy blond hair, looking for that smile, listening for his voice. By the time you were leaving campus, you were a jittery and bug eyed mess, flinching at everything and paranoid to the point of pain.

“What’s wrong?” your father asked you gruffly at dinner that night as the two of you picked at your food in silence. Usually you at least made an attempt at conversation, but now there was nothing you could think of to share with him that wasn’t-

“Nothing,” you said with a forced smile, “I’m tired.”

It wasn’t a lie. You were more tired than you’d ever been. As the days wore on, sleep became an impossibility. Night had become a prison of fear, the dark too frightening to allow you to shut your lamp off. Images flashed through your mind, an endless circle of the dead man’s mangled face and that shining smile merging and twisting, haunting you.

Each day felt more strained and pushing you closer to what you would imagine madness felt like. Several times you found yourself unable leave home at all, burying your face in your pillow and sobbing in sickened despair as the memories chased you like particularly vengeful demons. Fear, too. Fear, because you had no idea if you were actually safe, if you could trust the peace of your life as it was.

The second week was better, if only because you were getting better at shutting out the events of that night. Life had to move on. Even if you didn’t sleep, even if you were sent into a panic at the slightest of provocations, even if you didn’t step outside without looking over your shoulder every few seconds, you couldn’t expect life to wait for you.

Into the third week, you had fixed the damage the first week after that night had done to your school work and attendance. People had stopped asking you what was wrong. Pretending, pretending, it wasn’t if anybody had cared overly much in the first place. It was fine.

After class that Friday, you stopped at the grocery store, picking up some things for dinner. It was fine, you weren’t checking each person for that smile or feeling on the verge of a meltdown at the sight of any passing blond man. It was fine when you got your key into the door, balancing the grocery bags on one arm as you pushed it open and stepped in. It was fine when you shut the door behind you. It was fine, until you dropped the bags, your arms going limp and body becoming numb.

“You’re home! I’ve been waiting for quite awhile, you know,” the blond of your nightmares said with an energetic energy, and, of course, a big smile, “Don’t worry, your father has been such a great host, we’ve been catching up.” He patted your father’s shoulder as if they were old pals, making the older man flinch.

Then the blond -the killer- frowned, pouting, his voice taking on an edge of hurt.

 “But, he said you didn’t tell him about me. And I thought we hit it off so well! I’m hurt, _y/n_.” His voice curled around your name uncomfortably.

You stared mutely, unresponsively, at the scene in front of you, at the man you had presumed to be the boss of some sort of crime ring, the murderer of your nightmares, sitting comfortably in the mismatched scene of your kitchen table. Your father had his back to you, saying nothing. He was tied to the chair, you could see his arms wound tight with ropes around the arm rests.

“Come, come, sit down! I’d like to talk,” the boss said, waving you over with an inviting smile.

On numb legs, you approached, sitting across from him with stiff posture. You turned your eyes to your father, sickened shock freezing your blood when you saw what had been done. Bruises bloomed in ugly purple and brown splotches across his face, his mouth gagged. It made your heart stutter in fear and in despair. No matter what else he was, he was still your father. He was hurt, because of you.

“First things first,” the other man said enthusiastically, drawing your attention away from your beaten and bruised father, “The last time we met, you ran off before I could introduce myself,” he said, putting a hand to his chest with an overdone self-important air, “My name is Pariston Hill. It’s a pleasure to see you again,” he told you with a winning smile.

“Pariston Hill,” you repeated blankly, your mind still trying to catch up. Unlike last time, you could see his face clearly in the warm kitchen light. His sparkling brown eyes, his smooth skin, and his deeply disturbing boyishly good looks. On every count, Pariston Hill looked and sounded like an approachable and friendly man.

“No, no! Please, call me Pariston. All my friends do,” he said energetically, folding his hands and resting his chin on them, his smile not dropping, “Your father said that when you were younger he called you Bambi, do you mind if I call you that? Such a cute name suits you so well.” 

You flinched at hearing a murderer call you by your childhood nickname, a relic of better times, but Pariston continued without consideration. 

“Although-” he chuckled awkwardly, his eyes scanning you with an exaggerated movement, “-You look quite unwell today, are you okay?”  

If you didn’t know better, you could almost believe the worry in his expression.

“Why are you here?” you asked, your voice thin and with frayed nerves. As opposed to the meltdowns of tears and panic you’d felt in all the days since first meeting Pariston, you felt a strange sort of resignation. You didn’t have to worry about the boogeyman under your bed when you could see him right in front of you. “I didn’t tell anyone.”

Pariston didn’t seem put off by your lack of enthusiasm, in fact, you’d say that he looked even more delighted now.

“Of course you didn’t. You’re a good girl, aren’t you?” he asked sweetly, “A university student with good grades, a dutiful daughter to a strict father… Yes, you’re a very good girl,  _Bambi_ ,” Pariston said, letting those uncomfortable words hang in the air a moment, his gaze making your skin crawl. How did he know about your grades? About your father? Before you could get too caught up on the rabbit hole of those thoughts, his expression dropped into a worried frown.

“Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean I can allow you to get off so easily. I truly would like to forgive you, but that’s hardly fair to all the other people who have broken the rules and been punished, don’t you think?” Pariston asked, putting it in a tone of regret, like he was sorry.

That sound made your stomach twist, an awful sick feeling threatening to choke you. It was similar to the tone he’d taken before killing that man, crushing his throat without even the slightest hesitance. Fear squeezed your throat, but despair was filled your eyes with tears, helplessness drowning your thoughts. You looked over to your father for some type of guidance, but his watery eyes were fixed on Pariston. Angry? Scared? You couldn’t tell.

“Eh? Do you want to ask your father for help?” Pariston asked, “Yes, that’s fine! Go ahead and take out the gag. I’d love to hear his opinion on the matter!”

You looked at Pariston with skeptical fear, trying to determine if he meant it or was just being cruel. Hands folded beneath his chin again and smiling as he watched contentedly, you decided that he was actually allowing it. With shaking hands, you reached out to pull the wet gag from your father’s mouth, letting it drop to the floor.

“Are you okay?” you asked him right away, your voice wobbling and hushed with worry. That feeling froze in your throat when he looked at you, his eyes shining with pain and-

“He told me why you’ve been acting so strange… Drugs?” your father asked, true hurt and an edge of anger in his voice, “You should have told me before it came to this.”

You blinked at him, a second passing of empty incomprehension.

“Drugs?” you repeated, heart clenching painfully in response to his expression and tone. It was like he was blaming you, his voice the same as when he lectured you.

“Yes, I explained to him up all about our last meeting,” Pariston cut in with a helpful tone, “He told me that you don’t have the money to pay for the product you stole,” he paused, laughing in a somewhat embarrassed way, “That puts me in a bit of an awkward position. As someone running a business, I can’t allow you to get away with it, but I would hate to have to hurt your innocent father any further. You know what happens to thieves, don’t you, Bambi?”

You stared at Pariston abject horror, bone deep fear seeping straight to the marrow. Your brain easily provided a reminder of what treatment Pariston subjected thieves to, of that man’s broken body and face. Of his death. 

Pariston’s eyes were sparkling, true delight in his expression as he met your gaze.

“He’s lying,” you said, turning to your father with pleading eyes quickly filling with tears, “That’s not.. Not what happened at all.”

“I found the bottles.. Stuffed under your mattress like some sort of junky,” he closed his eyes for a moment, opening them with a look of regret, “I don’t know what you want me to do, this is the hole you dug… You should have known better than to get involved with the mafia.”

“The mafia… He’s lying,” you repeated, begging him to understand.

“We made a deal,” he told you, avoiding your eyes by looking straight ahead, “If you go with him willingly, he’ll let both of us live. Neither of us need to die for your mistake.”

“A deal? Go… Go with him?” you asked, looking back at Pariston with disgust. He waved, a cheeky little motion.

“I’ll let you pay off your debt. Doesn’t that sound fair?” he asked sweetly, holding out the waving hand in offering. You swallowed hard, shaking your head.

“Tell him that you’re lying,” you told Pariston instead of trying to find a reply to that unthinkable proposition. He stared at you, eyes widening and mouth pursing.

“Eh? Me?” he asked, putting a hand on his chest and his head tilting innocently.

“Tell him!” you said, louder, scared. Your father saying you should go with this murderer couldn’t possibly be the truth, this had to be an elaborate lie, or a dream, or a prank, or something,  _anything_  else than wretched reality.

“Even though he’s terribly disappointed and unhappy with you, your father still tried to bargain for your life. Shouldn’t you be more grateful?” Pariston asked you.

“ _Stop!”_ you all but shouted in desperation,  _“_ Te-”

“Do you want both of us to die?” your father interrupted you in a voice louder than your own, making you violently flinch away.

“Now, now, there’s no need to shout,” Pariston said soothingly.

You leaned back in your chair, an emotion beyond despair or fear overcoming you, squeezing your chest and throat and pounding against your temple. Your father’s eyes were averted still, avoiding yours as you searched his bruised face for some trace of concern or sympathy. Pariston was smiling, his eyes burning into you as he waited for the singular conclusion he’d created.

“If I go with you, you won’t hurt him?” you finally asked in a forcibly measured tone, trying to stomp down on your despair and push it down.

“Oh dear… Do you really think so low of me to believe I’d break a promise?” Pariston asked.

There was no way you could trust his smile, but what choice did you have but to trust his words? You looked at your father one last time, but it only brought pain, agony, like something in you was being ripped apart. Despite how he’d ever treated you, he was still your father. He was meant to protect you, and now he believed the word of a stranger over yours.

It was, out of everything, the worst possible pain you could have imagined.

“Fine,” you said quietly, looking at the table and pushing down the torrential storm of tears stinging the back of your eyes. 

Pariston stood up so quickly in response to your agreement it startled you, making you jump. He grabbed that gold handled cane, that horrible weapon, and smiled brilliantly.

“Wonderful!” he exclaimed with a bright enthusiasm, “Then we better be off, I’d hate to overstay my welcome.” 

You stood up with stiff movements, heart pounding.

“Right now?” you asked.

“When else?” Pariston replied curiously, rounding the table towards the door.

You looked down at your father, who was still bound and staring straight ahead.

“What about my things? What about him…” you trailed off, seeing the dark look in Pariston’s eyes despite his smile. It made your heart drop.

“He’ll be fine, won’t he? As long as you honor your end of the deal,  _Bambi_ , I’ll honor mine,” Pariston told you in a voice that didn’t match the threat the words implied, extending a hand.

_But what about my life?_

You didn’t say those words, but you saw the answer in his flat gaze. 

With your own trembling hand, you reached out, allowing Pariston to, as the romantics might have said, take your hand, and take your whole life, too. 


	63. Valentine's Day with Hisoka

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anon wanted Hisoka in a suit and I wanted something for Valentines Day that wound up coming a bit after and longer than anticipated

Optimistically, the final product produced by the excess of time you’d spent on your appearance wasn’t terrible. It was unlike you to do much more than the bare minimum of concealer to hide the seemingly permanent bags under your eyes and maybe a few swipes of mascara, but if there was any night to actually try and look nice, it was tonight.

Valentine’s Day, yes, but also the night of the first date you’d been on in a very long time.

For both of those reasons, it wasn’t so strange that you would be nervous, but the emotion that churned your stomach and made your hands shake was not the type of butterflies and anticipation, but of cold and frightening dread. Still, you resisted the urge to call and cancel. It had been months and a whole country away since you’d last seen  _him_ , and to continue to live your life in isolation and fear was to allow him to have won whatever sick game he had forced you to play.

It was better pick up the pieces and move on. To leave all thoughts of him locked up in the Pandora’s Box where you kept all of your horrifying memories and pretend it didn’t happen. Unfortunately, Pandora had opened the box. You really had been doing well in keeping yourself distracted from thinking of him, but tonight was different. For so many reasons, it was different.

Staring absently at yourself in the mirror while your mind danced in nervous circles, your eyes drifted to your painted lips. Demon Dazed red was the color of stain you had picked, and as your mind delved deeper into those forbidden memories, his name stuck to the uncomfortably appropriate color, begging to be spoken.

It was a curse of three syllables created by a sharp beginning, a round middle, and ending with the misleading noise commonly associated with relief. Those sounds poised on your tongue, burning to be given voice, but you swallowed it down. Surely if you spoke his name, or even thought of it too hard, he would somehow reappear in the fashion of the ghosts you had feared as a kid. The brief interlude of tense peace you’d been given in the months since the last time you had seen him would end, and your fate would be sealed in the spotlight of gold.

Just thinking of that threatened to send you spiraling. No matter how silly it was, it wasn’t hard to imagine him tearing down the life you had managed to create from the ashes. A pitiful and broken life lived by a girl who had a hard time even looking at playing cards and was made sick by the scent of bubblegum.

But then you looked at the cute heart shaped box of chocolates on your vanity and thought of Cass’ confidently bold attitude in asking you out on such a significant romantic holiday, you pictured his gentle brown eyes and messy good looks. The two of you had been working as a team since you’d taken this merc job because his strength as an Emitter was a perfect compliment to protect your unique Specialist ability but lackluster Enhancer skills.

Thinking of him made you feel better, warmer.

There was no need to open Pandora’s Box tonight.

Shaking your head to clear it, you looked back up, trying to decide if you would switch Demon Daze for a less flashy color. Before you could pick, your doorbell rang. The sound made you jump, your heart picking up a quick tempo, first in fear, then in nervous excitement.

Demon Daze was fine, you decided right then, grabbing your shoes and shutting off the lights. On the way to the door you awkwardly hop-stepped into your heels, shoes you had worn all of twice before now. You generally did your best to remain inconspicuous, but tonight Cass had said to dress up. The idea of him seeing in you in something other than your generally lackluster day to day outfits was thrillingly scary for reasons you didn’t dare name.

Already smiling in anticipation of the cheesy pick-up line you were going to greet him with -Are you lost sir? Because heaven is a long way from here- you unlocked your door and threw it open.

“Are you lost, ss-” the playful words trailed off, your smile freezing in place when the open door revealed a stranger in place of the guy you expected. The first thing you noticed was a strangely formal black three piece, and, belatedly, the man wearing it.

Your mind labeled him a stranger.

Your instincts screamed at you to run.

“No. I’m exactly where I want to be,” he replied silkily, smiling. Without makeup and wearing his magenta red hair combed down, recognition took you far longer than it should have considering his was the face seared into the backs of your eyelids.

“Hisoka,” you finally hissed, your voice a comical mixture of choked surprise and icy dread. This couldn’t be happening, not here, not now, not tonight.

_Not again._

Denial clouded your mind, but panic spurred your body into action, your heeled feet clicking on the laminate wood floor as you stepped back and made to slam the door. Hisoka easily stopped it with a black gloved hand, his smile not faltering.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he asked sweetly.

That smile, his voice, the cloyingly sweet scent you could swear you already smelled… It was too much, inviting all of the memories back, all of the pain and the fear and the slow unraveling you thought you had overcome in the months of his absence.

“Get your hand off my door,” you ordered him in a surprisingly convincing growl, your voice lowered by the dryness of fear shoving its way up your throat. Again, you tried to push the door shut, using all of the strength you had.

“Okay~” Hisoka responded easily, removing his hand and stepping in. Without the counter of his strength, you succumbed to all your extra force and fell forward, slamming the door shut and nearly collapsing against it.

Or, you would have, if a gloved hand hadn’t grabbed your arm and pulled you back up before you could hit the floor. The leather was cool compared to the heat you knew Hisoka’s hands usually radiated, his strength effortless in getting you on your feet. There was no physical damage, but the touch hurt, bruised and burned you deep because it meant it was real, that he was real. The second you had any semblance of balance, you whipped around, carelessly swinging your fist to hit him but falling short because of his casual step back.

Like this, wearing a dark suit and made up to look alienly normal without his usual stylistic gimmicks, Hisoka had managed to fool you into thinking he was human for a second. But he couldn’t change his eyes. His terrifying eyes. Even shadowed in the dim lighting, they made your skin crawl as they dragged down your figure.

“You look very nice,” he cooed, unruffled by your less than positive greeting, “Did you know I was coming?”

His seemingly innocuous question rekindled old feelings with enough heat that it was as if they had never faltered. You burned with the frightened desire to give in to the flood of panic and run. Your feet urged you to flee, to make a break for it and escape at all costs. But there was something in you -something, something- that was, in the most vile way possible, glad to see him.

And that was the worst, wasn’t it? At the mere sight of him, you could perfectly recall his twisted seduction. The decline of your sane mind as you fell into the dark magic of Hisoka’s madness. The intensity, the fire and the fear and the helplessness, the feeling you’d buried in shame and self hatred only to be drawn up in the dark moments when you were alone in your bed with a fever consuming your skin and your hand between your legs.

Now, it was all you felt. Disgust. Hate. Fear. Heat. Want. Despair.

“Get out,” you told Hisoka, your voice husky and hushed. You knew, and maybe he did, too, that it wasn’t only him you were denying, but your awful mess of thoughts and feelings. If you didn’t push them down, they would surely drive you mad.

“You can’t be here, you can’t…” your breathing was becoming uneven and your shaking hands tightened, your voice picking up volume as your repressed emotions swirled, condensed and solidified, presenting as anger and giving the words volume and acidity, “You were gone, you left and I moved on,” ignored tears stung at the back of your eyes, your head rushing with a crescendo of blood as you took a deep breath and step forward to shout in earnest, “So just leave me ALONE, you TWISTED PSYCHOPATH! Get OUT of my HOUSE!”

The fiery storm of your bottled emotions ended as quickly as it had begun. The angry words filled the empty living area you had never bought furniture to decorate with in a silent and drawn out echo, the only real noise remaining in the wake of your shouting being your gasping and hiccuping breaths as you fought to maintain control. Hisoka’s expression was shadowed, but you knew he was smiling. You knew it, you could feel it in the electric tension of the air.

“Oh my, you really did miss me,” Hisoka all but purred in delight.

In the next moment, he was behind you, moving with the uncomfortably jarring supernatural speed you had nearly forgotten about. Gloved hands settled on your suddenly tense shoulders, holding you close as he leaned down to talk more directly into your ear.

“Were you worried that I had forgotten about you? I wouldn’t abandon you on Valentine’s Day, especially not when you look so  _tasty_ ….”

With a startled grunt, you struggled to get away from Hisoka, but the leather covered hands turned violent in holding you in place, his fingers squeezing you in a not-so-subtle reminder of how easily he could break you. It sent a shock down your spine and pulled choked cry of pain from your mouth before you could bite it back, your body going still to make him stop.

“Let go of me,” you told him instead, the demand holding a whiny edge you truly despised.

“Okay,” Hisoka agreed, loosening his grip and trailing his gloved hands down your arms slowly, pulling chills to the skin, “Since its our first time, I wanted to make it special, but if you’re going to be difficult…” he laughed, a short and breathless little sound before his voice lowered, “I don’t mind.”

Leaving you reeling after his foreboding words, Hisoka stood up straight. Then, he pushed you. The sudden attack sent you tumbling forward, falling in a helpless splay to the dark laminate flooring of your empty living room, hitting hard and recklessly rolling to a stop with your dress askew and all the air pushed from your lungs.

You wound up on your side, wincing at the pain and blinking your vision straight as a pair of shiny dress shoes approached. Before you were even actually steady, you dizzily scrambled to get your hands and knees beneath you, needing to move away from him and stand up. Before you could, you were shoved back onto the floor with nothing more than the toe of his shoe, falling on your back to look up at Hisoka.

Now illuminated by the diffused light managing to find its way in from your drawn blinds, you had another view on how uncomfortably wrong Hisoka looked. Human. Normal. Terrifyingly handsome rather than the eerily comic beauty he possessed when he was done up in makeup and costume. More than that, the light gave strength to the yellow gaze that pinned you in place, to those unforgettably frightening eyes.

“That’s better, now I can see your eyes. I  _adore_  that look,” he told you with a bated fervor.

Laying on the floor so vulnerably with Hisoka standing above you like some demon idol solidified the dark reality of his intentions. Although he’d insinuated it several times when he’d been stalking you all those months back, Hisoka had never actually attempted to touch you. He always said he was waiting. Waiting for the fruit to ripen, waiting to claim his prize, waiting until he was ready to close the final curtain on your sanity and use you for all the worth you had left.

You averted your frightened gaze, heart thrumming with a fresh round of fear as you rolled to the side, trying again to scramble away. With a pained ‘umph’, you were pushed back when Hisoka knelt down to straddle your hips, keeping you in place beneath him.

“Get off of me!” you demanded with thin bravery, pushing at his hands and refusing to meet his delighted stare.

“Don’t be shy,” Hisoka teased playfully, “We’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?” To match those playful words, his gloved fingers caressed the flushed skin of your face, softly brushing down your neck and to your fluttering chest until they met the crooked neckline of your dress. The leather was cool and soft, drawing chills to your skin and a sending a tremor down your spine. Even with the glove preventing skin on skin contact, his touch was too intimate, too sexual considering the way he was poised above you.

“Why now?” you asked in a weaker whisper. You cleared your throat to speak louder, imploring him with a desperate curiosity to find the logic in this horror, “You were gone and… Why now?”

Hisoka’s lips quirked.

“Who knows?” he replied casually, “I’m in a romantic mood. I even  _dressed_  for the occasion.”

Those words drew your attention again to his clothes, the fitted black three piece with a red shirt beneath. So muted and tame compared to anything else you’d ever seen on him, but the lack of theatrics almost made it worse. Hisoka knew he looked every bit the part of some fancily dressed heartthrob, moving in a purposefully seductive way with his eyes not leaving yours as he pulled off his blazer and tossed it aside. The vest cinched his waist appealingly, the red color of his button down an eye-catching contrast to his impossibly pale skin.

“Shall we begin?” he asked, practically taunted, in a honeyed voice. The only response Hisoka seemed to want was the look of fear to come across your face before he began pulling up the skirt of your dress, bunching it up around your waist while you fought him off with useless hands. Powerlessness made your breathing hitch, a sickened swollen feeling choking you up as your struggling proved futile against him.

“No!” you shouted to deny that defeatist mentality, repeating the word once, twice, three times without any real belief that it would make him stop. It was to deny your weakness, to rebel against him even though all your fighting did was tear the fabric with an ugly ripping sound.

“How will I enjoy my Valentine’s Day treat unless I unwrap it first?” Hisoka asked innocently over the sounds of your struggling, “Now hold still,”

From seemingly out of thin air, he produced a card. Just one glance at the unassuming weapon had you frozen. No matter how terrified you were of what was about to happen, you didn’t want to die. In your fear, you only realized that he intended to skip the back zipper and cut your dress off all together when he was already sliding the lethally sharp edge of the Joker through the fabric.

“I hate you,” you whispered once your dress was out of the way, the last pieces of ripped fabric thrown aside and leaving you half naked. Fragile anger strengthened your wavering tone in a pathetic contradiction to how little fight you’d managed to put up against him, but still, you spoke, “I hate you so.. So much. But you can’t break me. Maybe… Maybe if you hadn’t left, but I’m stronger now, and I’ll be damned if I let you ruin me.”

Hisoka’s yellow eyes widened in excitement at your bold claims, his eyebrows raising and color drawing to flush across his pale and unpainted cheeks.

“Mmm,” he groaned eagerly, the sound of someone overcome by anticipatory pleasure, “You make me all… excited when you say things like that… I can’t wait to tear it all down.”

The assurity of that comment, the delighted promise in his voice, threatened to send you over the edge, to give in to the sobbing fear that pounded against the floodgates you were holding shut. But you couldn’t give in. Not to him, not like this. So you turned your face away.

Hisoka was about to respond, his black gloved hand already at your cheek to force your head forward, but the sound of an engine outside your house stopped him. The living room filled with an even brighter light, headlights from a car in your driveway.

Cass. Oh God, Cass.

You thought of all the people Hisoka had killed, anybody and everybody you were close with. Anybody who flirted with you or approached you. So many people had died because of you, and although Cass was strong, he was no match for the demon who had claimed you.

“Do you have a date?” Hisoka asked, his slightly surprised tone a horrible pair to your sickened dread.

“N-no, a… A coworker,” you said, trying to keep your reaction minimal under Hisoka’s piercing gaze. Each measured step up your walk was painful, the sound stopping at your front door. The moment extended on pause, drawing on while your mind spun. Was Cass hesitating because he was nervous? Did he think something was wrong? You mentally begged that he would turn around and leave, begging any cosmic force or God or gods or  _anything_  as long as he didn’t-

Cass rang the doorbell.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Hisoka asked with a smile, leaning down over you to speak quietly.

“He’s not. We work together, is all,” you said as steadily as you could. Cass rang the doorbell again, knocking louder. Impatient, always too impatient. Hisoka sat up, his eyes narrowing unsettlingly.

You knew what that look meant, it made your blood run icy cold.

“Please don’t do-” you cut yourself off at the look in Hisoka’s eyes as he took your grasping hands in his.

“What’s the saying-” He slammed your hands to the floor with a brutal violence despite the twisted smirk he wore, “Two’s company, but three’s a crowd..?”  

With that, he stood, gracefully agile, while you pulled frantically at your hurt and stuck hands, useless and half naked, unable to stop Hisoka from answering the door.  

“Is everything oka….. Who are you?” Cass cut off his worried words to ask in startled trepidation.

“I’m her date,” Hisoka answered charmingly, moving his hand with a little flourish, a card materializing between those fingers. Like magic.

“CASS, RUN!” you shouted, struggling against the Bungee Gum holding your hands to the floor. His worried face peeked in, and you saw the very second that stupid rage overtook him. Cass was fast, and his remarkable speed got him past the door, but it didn’t matter. Hisoka didn’t even have to try, simply slitting Cass’ throat with his card in a smooth motion.

“It’s rude to interrupt a couple on Valentine’s Day,” Hisoka said dismissively as Cass’ body thudded heavily to the floor.

Without any respect or regard for the man, Hisoka kicked Cass’ feet out of the way to shut the door, then turned back to you. For the first time, you didn’t care at all about Hisoka’s approach. Your eyes were fixed only on Cass. It pinched your neck up to look at him, but you had to, waiting with bated breath until he moved. He had to get up. He had to, he couldn’t be-

“You killed him…” you whispered in cold horror. Hot tears were finally forming in your eyes, growing fat and blurring your vision before overflowing and ruining the hours of work you’d put into your makeup for this special, special night.

“Look at me,” Hisoka ordered in a low and silky tone, stopping at your feet. You did so, lifting your gaze to him with a searching look, shock providing you a glassy moment of empty peace.

Hisoka licked his lips, his dark eyes flashing gold as they ran over your exposed skin and the fancy lingerie you had bought and worn as a sort of treat for yourself. His gloved hands, the ones that had just killed one of the only good things you had in your life, were already undoing his belt, pulling it from the loops and dropping it aside as he knelt down beside you. Still, with a dead body in the room, after his murder, still, he intended to-

“Let me…” you cleared your throat, despair being shoved aside from something hotter, something caustic. Disgust swelled up and over to cover your tumultuous emotional pain, burning you, “Let me go, you sick… You sick MONSTER!” you shouted in a cracked voice.

“Yes… That’s a wonderful look,” Hisoka crooned, his voice nearly trembling with an emotion you could only call desire, “My precious toy,  _my Valentine~_ ”

“Let me GO!” you shouted back, kicking your feet and arching your back in distress, in a mindlessly animalistic need to fight and struggle.

“All right,” Hisoka aquiested in a candied voice. The same second your hands were free, he had an arm beneath you, pulling you up right and against him. Crashing your lips against his.

The victory of being freed of his Bungee Gum was meaningless when you were trapped in his arms, and your lack of lust didn’t matter when his was carnally overbearing and ravenous.

Hisoka kissed you in a way that was forceful, painful when you didn’t comply to his sloppily aggressive dominance, his teeth on your lip making you cry out and follow his lead as his tongue pushed obscenely into your mouth. You’d never kissed or been kissed in such an invasive way, messy and demanding and thick with the unavoidable push of his arousal.

All the while his gloved hands touched you and held you close, the leather feeling so cold and smooth compared to the burning warmth his body radiated and the aggressive and bruising passion of his touch. It didn’t matter if you were pushing him away or struggling, all your lackluster fight got you was the strange vibrations of his excited moans, muffled by your own mouth.

It was too overwhelming. His kiss, his touch. Your mind became clouded with the familiar nightmare scent of amber and musk, a smell that made you sick, that made you tremble, that made you hot. It made it hard to breath, impossible when Hisoka didn’t allow you any break for air, kissing you until you were dizzy and breathless, until you didn’t have the strength to fight against him.

When he finally let you pull away, allowing you to collapse back in your weak and gasping state, your mind could only find one solid anchor of thought. Demon Daze red was smeared on Hisoka’s wet mouth. It lent its awfully ironic scarlet color to his unpainted face. For a second, that image held you, allowed you to buy into a different sort of fantasy. But then he spoke.

“Have you had a change of heart?” Hisoka asked sweetly, wiping his lower lip with a gloved finger, “You were returning my kiss.”

Hisoka’s cruel question and sickeningly sugary tone broke you from whatever spell you had allowed yourself to get caught in, your clashing and colliding confused emotions pushing you to act. In every possible way, Hisoka surprised you in physical Nen, that was impossible for you to deny. But right then, you didn’t care. Because of Cass, because of those months of terror, because of the illusion of peace, and because of tonight.

You slapped him across the face.

With all of your Aura focused on your palm, you could have probably broken most normal people’s necks, but it only managed to turn Hisoka’s head. Despite that, the sound was one of the most satisfying noises you’d ever heard, almost as good as the look of shock on his face and the bright bloom of color across his cheek that he prodded at with his fingers.  
  
Satisfying.

Then he laughed. The tremulous sound was stifled by the hand already at his face, the uncomfortable bout capped by a low moan and the return of his yellow eyes to yours. Dark and dangerous Aura filled the air around you, thickening the heavy tension with his terrifyingly murderous lust. It made your heart stop. This was the point of absolutely no return, you could feel it in some wild part of your mind.

“How wonderful,” Hisoka said in a tone of wavering sensuality, turning to look at you with a smile, mania gleaming in his eyes. “That wasn’t bad,” he told you, holding your gaze unyieldingly while he used his teeth to help pull off his glove. You couldn’t look away. The left one flopped to the floor. “No, not bad at all. You’ve gotten stronger, haven’t you?” the right glove fell. Hisoka smiled.

“You’re such a  _good girl_  for me… I was right to pick you.”

You moved before Hisoka did, the spurred frenzy of your heart shooting you with adrenaline to make a last panicked attempt at avoiding that manic desire in his eyes. He caught you easily, grabbing your arm with an ungloved and burning hand and jerking you towards him. Rather than trying to take you in his arms again, Hisoka pulled you to your knees before shoving your torso back to the floor, knocking your chin against the laminate and filling the room with the sound of your pained cries.

The position left no room for doubt about what was going to happen, neither did the sound of Hisoka undoing his zipper. He kept the arm he had grabbed pinned to your back, forcing your torso down and bunched so your ass was brazenly presented for him.

The position also left you with a clear view of Cass, laying not even five feet from you, face down in a puddle of his own blood. You could smell it, the sickening and tangy metallic scent. Dead. Dead because of you, because of the man you were about to let fuck you, because you’d gotten him mixed up in your mess of a life. A sob worked its way up your throat, the pain of those thoughts too heavy to deal with. Like a child too naive to handle the cruelties of the world, you closed your eyes.

“Stop! Hisoka, stop now,” you begged, struggling as he pulled your underwear down to expose you to him. Fighting was pointless, pointless, you knew there was no way you could get out of this. Maybe there never had been. But you couldn’t stop, to accept something you absolutely did not want was abhorrent to your quickly slipping mind, so you writhed and twisted, anything, anything, anything. “Please.”

“It’s okay,” Hisoka soothed in a sugary and heavy voice, pushing your legs further apart.

You wanted to beg him to stop.

His hot fingers were wet with what you assumed was saliva, making you gasp as he pushed them shallowly into your exposed entrance.

Or to tell him you weren’t ready.

Hisoka laughed at your reaction, sliding his fingers down to touch your clit with a jolt of electric contact, pulling helpless and pathetic sounds from your mouth.

Or maybe even try to yell and to fight more.

Hisoka gave you no warning when he pushed himself into you, splitting you apart without pity or care.

But you didn’t do any of those things. Instead, you screamed for him.

He didn’t stop until he was all the way in, having driven each agonizing inch of his dick into you without hesitation. You weren’t aroused enough to provide any sort of lubrication to the awful violation, although you doubted even that would be enough to help you take him without any preparation first. Tears fell from the eyes you’d squeezed shut, forming a puddle beneath the shaking fist you had pulled to your mouth to stifle your helpless sounds.

Hisoka groaned, a long and drawn out sound of bliss.

“How nice,” he cooed, experimentally rolling his hips and sending fresh waves of pain through you.

“Please, Hisoka, stop,” you whimpered, pleading pathetically in the face of this hurt. He let go of your arm use both hands to softly pet your back, trailing his hot fingers up that skin to gently hold your hips.

“Just relax,” he told you sweetly, pulling out.

“I-I can’t,” you whined, “It hurts.”

“You can,” Hisoka said, the words followed by another pleasured groan and scream when he pushed back in without mercy. “See?” he asked cutely.

There was nothing you could say in response to that, even if you did have the capability for coherency as he began to set a torturous pace in fucking you. The sound of your screaming diluted into nothing but small cries and gasps, sobs that could almost be compared to the freely given moans of pleasure from Hisoka above you.

“You’re so tight,” he groaned happily, praising you sweetly, “You really didn’t sleep with any other boys while I was gone… Maybe I’ll give you a present.”

The only response you had to the words you had barely heard was a whimper, every part of your mind fixed on separating yourself from the pain, from him. Hisoka made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a growl, slowing his pace to thrust more deeply, with more calculated movements. His warm hands went to your back, effortlessly undoing the clasp of your bra while you were more preoccupied with the change of pace.

“Are you ignoring me?” Hisoka asked, a hint of danger mixing with the cloying desire in his voice.

He allowed no time for the answer you didn’t have, pulling your back up to an arch with undeniable strength and pushing your bra all the way off. Keeping your hips steady with one hand, he tilted your head back with the other, forcing you into a dramatic and suffocating angle while you tried to stabilize yourself with your hands braced against the floor.

“Are you ignoring me?” he asked again, even sweeter this time.

“No,” you choked out, your voice nearly incomprehensible with your head tilted back and his hot hand wrapped around your throat.

“Good girl,” Hisoka hummed gleefully, pushing you back to the floor.

For a few seconds, you were dizzy from the lack of air, your body feeling more aware than your mind. Aware that when Hisoka began picking back up into the punishing pace from before, it didn’t hurt in the same way. Aware that despite the splitting sensation, you could feel sparks of heat with each thrust.

You didn’t realize you’d moaned until you heard Hisoka’s breathless laughter.

“How nice…” he groaned, the fevered intensity in his voice shuttering with pleasure, “You’re mine, only mine.”

“No!” you protested through fresh tears and a pained throat, fighting against the building tension in your core as much as you were his words, denying that this nightmare could possibly be real.

“Your pain…” Hisoka continued as if he hadn’t heard you, his voice thick with lust and punctuated with increasingly guttural sounds of desire, “Your pleasure…”

He tilted your pelvis, changing the angle in a way that painted stars across the black of your closed eyelids. You couldn’t shut it out, not the need that came with the push to release or Hisoka himself, the sound of his hated voice saying such terrible things while he fucked you in the most deliciously repulsive way.

“You’re wrong,” you argued again, your voice weak and breathy. All it did was make Hisoka groan, pushing into you especially hard to draw a sharp whimper from your lips.

“Am I? Isn’t that why you saved yourself for me?” his voice swelled with the fervor and passion of a madman. The thrust of his hips was becoming uneven and frenzied, you could physically feel that he was close, hurting you with the intensity of his desire.

“Hisoka-” you bit out in a vain attempt to make him relent, your face pinched in pain.

“Ah… You make me feel so good…. Mine…. My special girl-” his words broke off with a loud and nearly animalistic moan of absolute rapture. Hisoka roughly drove himself as deep as possible as he came, holding you still with a bruising grip, allowing you to fully feel the way he was filling you. Slowly, shallowly, he thrust into you a few more times, each one making you twitch and gasp, before pulling out completely.

You expected it to be over.

Hisoka wasn’t nearly so generous.

He flipped you onto your back before you could even attempt to move on your own, letting you flop down with a grunt. The shock of him settling your thighs on his shoulders was enough to pull you from despairing numbness, replacing it with a faraway fear. And, even worse, confused lust.

“What are you-”

Before you could finish your question, Hisoka answered it by way of example. You cried out at the first touch of his fingers, at the painful reminder of soreness that came even from him exposing your clit. You cried out again when he dragged his tongue across the sensitive flesh.

“Relax,” Hisoka told you, “I wouldn’t want to treat you  _unfairly_.”

You should have protested more than you did. Because you were crying, still crying. Anger was still trying to pound in your frantic heart, reason making a solid appeal to your disintegrating mind. But it made your back arch, your muscles flexing and irrational mind whirling with the new stimulation. Pleasure wasn’t too far gone, your body could still recall the building tension inside you while he had been fucking you. Now it was intensified and focused.

Rather than eating you out in the teasing and playful way he’d done everything else, there was a strange seriousness to Hisoka’s movements. You were going to come quickly from the way he was swirling his tongue, how he exploited anything that made your vision flash white. It hurt when he pushed a finger into you, eased by the lubrication of his own cum. It hurt, but you moaned for it, your own fingers grasping desperately at his hair. You knew you didn’t want it, but you could hear yourself urging him on, your hips trying to move against his mouth and fingers.

Madness, maybe, maybe, _maybe_. Was madness finding pleasure in disgust and despair, in your own ruination?

“His-o-ka-ah,” his name fell from your lips without any thought, a curse as surely as a prayer. He hummed, slipping a second finger into you and it hurt, it really hurt, but you moaned for that, too.

_Mine. My special girl._

That wasn’t true, none of this was right and you knew that, but you could feel yourself tensing up, the heat of pleasure blazing out the thoughts that screamed at the horror of this situation, that knew how unforgivable giving yourself to Hisoka in this way was.

His prize, his toy, his Valentine. His, his, his-

“Hisoka, _I-I can’t-”_

He hummed again, and that was enough for that built up tension, taunt and burning, to break, to unravel, to fill you up and wipe your mind. Hisoka didn’t stop, working you through it while you cried out for him, your fingers in his hair and his name on your lips. Pleasure held you stiff and breathless, overwhelming you with the stimulation. Then it melted, becoming a vicious flow of radiant heat and bliss that you clung to until the very last bitter second.

And the last second, really, was bitter.

You couldn’t help a soft noise of pain when he pulled his fingers from you, blinking tears while you stared at the ceiling and came down from the false high of pleasure.

“Very nice,” Hisoka cooed, sitting up and bringing you back to the detestable state of reality, “I knew you’d be fun.”

Uncomfortable and not nearly numb enough to the extreme horror of the night, you sat up with a wince and wrapped your arms around your bare torso like a hug. The room smelled like sex and death, blood and sweat. Each of your gasping lungfuls of air were heavy with the noxious scent.

It was over. It had to be over. He couldn’t possibly want to torment you any further.

“It’s still early,” Hisoka said silkily, “Should we find somewhere more  _private_  to continue?” 


	64. Yandere Chrollo + Eating

“You’re not eating,” Chrollo noted passively, staring at you from across the restaurant table. Despite the way it made the fine hairs along your neck prickle, you didn’t meet his gaze, your own eyes dropped resolutely to the uneaten plate of food in front of you. Exhausted, worn out from the fast paced schedule Chrollo insisted you keep with him, and still pained from his rough treatment of you the night before, you didn’t feel much of an appetite.

“I’m not hungry,” you said with a shrug, despising how sulky you sounded, like an angst-ridden teenager rebelling against an adult.

“You didn’t eat earlier, either,” Chrollo continued.

“I wasn’t hungry earlier,” you responded, your voice very nearly taking on a sarcastic edge to echo his endlessly calm demeanor. It made you frown, intensifying the awful feeling that you were a child talking back to an adult. Chrollo didn’t get upset with your borderline bratty attitude, continuing curiously.

“Are you upset?”

That surprised you, considering you had fully expected at least a bit of anger in response to your juvenile behavior. You peeked up to meet his eyes across the table, dark and wide. Curious, maybe. Were you upset? Considering the question for a moment left you stumped, so you shrugged again, looking back down.

“Not especially.”

It wasn’t meant as an evasion of his question, because you really weren’t sure if ‘upset’ was the right word. Tired, more like. Tired on a very fundamental level. Too exhausted to play your role in Chrollo’s game the way you knew he wanted you too.

“Is this meant to be some sort of hunger strike?” Chrollo asked, clearly amused with the idea, albeit in an uncomfortably patronizing way.

Before you could think of a response, Chrollo let out a casual sigh. It was a sound without malice, but one that still made you tense up.

“I expected something like this to happen… Although, I hoped you were past this kind of behavior,” he paused before adding, “There are other ways to make you eat, you know.”

“It’s not that,” you quickly said, shaking your head in denial of the vague threat, “I’m really just not hungry.”

Chrollo didn’t respond, as if weighing your words. You had hope that he was going to drop the subject altogether when you heard his chair scrape quietly on the ground, pulling your gaze to watch him stand.

“What are you doing?” you asked, confused and a little nervous as he took the empty seat directly next to you. Looking around the restaurant, you were assured that nobody cared what the two of you were doing, but that didn’t make you any less uncomfortable about the situation.

“I can’t allow you to disregard your health,” Chrollo told you in the warm and gentle voice you knew to be false, but one that made your heart clench. He pulled your plate and unused silverware towards himself, “I’ll help you.”

You only understood what he meant once he’d speared a bite of food on the fork, holding it up for you. The look in his dark eyes was playful, but you’d long understood that Chrollo’s playful moods hardly ever meant anything good for you.

“Open your mouth,” he prompted sweetly.

Your eyes shot around the restaurant in embarrassment once again, but it wasn’t like anybody cared what was happening. It was only you who had to take part in the humiliation of being treated like a kid.

“I’ll do it,” you finally relented, cheeks flushed as you made to grab the silverware from him. He pulled it away from you, some of that warmth dropping from his face.

“I don’t like it when people who have a constant source of food refuse to eat,” Chrollo explained to you, “In any other circumstance, I’d allow you to starve so you could understand why, but-” he drew in a breath, pausing, “-It’s inconvenient for me if you become sick. Open your mouth.”

He followed the order with a small smile that matched his light tone, an expression and voice that lacked all hints of the threat his words conveyed. This time, obeying out of the nerves his words instilled in you, you opened your mouth and allowed him to feed you with a defeated slump to your shoulders and a hot flush on your face.

“Good,” Chrollo said sweetly. Rewarding you more than just with words, he looked and sounded like the man you had fallen in love with, a man you were often reminded was a fiction. Still, praise from him made your heart jump as you swallowed the food. 

He put the silverware down, pushing your plate back to you. With Chrollo’s smile gone, all traces of the man you loved were gone, too. Now his eyes were cold.

“Eat all of it. I doubt you want to find out the other methods I’ll use if you actually try to starve yourself,” he told you in a matter-of-fact way. Then, he smirked, a sharp expression. “It’s important for you to keep your strength up. I’d hate for you to ruin our fun.”


	65. Illumi Standing up to Kikyo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make the chapter titles descriptive, but holy fuck do they sound dumb lmao

“Mother,” Illumi suddenly said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had frozen over the entree course of the family dinner Kikyo always insisted happen when any family member arrived home from a mission.

At the best of times, these things were awkward, especially without Zeno or Silva to act as a balance, but tonight was worse than most. Your face still felt swollen and puffy from Kikyo’s particular brand of mothering ( _“You’re unfit to be his wife if you can’t have a child, he’ll have no choice but get rid of you.”_ ) and the tears you’d shed for hours after. Illumi coming home early was usually a positive surprise, but now it only meant you had to lie about the reason for your tears out of fear that maybe she was right.

Boldly lying to Illumi and then sitting beside him during a stiff family dinner was one of the more uncomfortable things you’d ever been forced to do, made worse with Kikyo sitting directly across from you.

When he spoke, it made you tense up, staring intently at your half eaten dinner.

“Yes, Illumi?” Kikyo asked sweetly, her pleasant voice making your stomach roll.

“My wife has been crying and she won’t say why. Do you know the reason?” he asked casually.

You flinched hard, curling your shoulders inwards as your insides twisted. It was just like Illumi to do something like this so bluntly, but now was the worst of times. You could feel the harsh glare of Kikyo’s visor’s eye.

“I’m sure I have no idea. Have you tried asking her?” Kikyo replied innocently, pointedly.

“Illumi, it really was just because I missed you,” you told him, peeking to the side with an imploring look for him to drop it. Even if he confronted Kikyo now, when he was gone again you’d be the one to have to deal with her. Illumi’s dark eyes met yours with a stoic and unreadable expression, and for a moment you hoped he’d drop it.

“Milluki, do you know?” Illumi asked evenly, turning to his brother who was sullenly eating after Kikyo had not so kindly asked him to be quiet through the meal. He looked up, his dark eyes flicking from Illumi to you and back again with a frown.

The change in Illumi’s line of questioning was effective, you could see Kikyo’s posture tense up, her desire to intervene before Milluki could speak made obvious. Somehow, you were on her side in this. All you wanted was for this awkward affair to end.

“Well it’s not mom’s fault she’s not pregnant,” Milluki finally said into the silence, defensive of Kikyo.

“Milluki!” she cut in shrilly, pulling his attention to her and making her displeasure at his good intentions clear.

“What?” Milluki asked, “Isn’t that all Illumi cares about, too? He shouldn’t get mad at you for trying to help even if  _she_  can’t take it. Besides, I-”

“That’s enough, Milluki!” Kikyo exclaimed. Then she let out a breath, returning to her simpering tone and back to Illumi. “All I want is what’s best for you and your family. You see, I have a great deal of valuable advice to help her be a better wife, and hopefully, a mother. I’m sure you’re able to understand that, Illumi.”

“No,” Illumi responded bluntly. He didn’t sound upset, despite the general tone of the conversation, speaking casually and in a matter-of-fact voice. “If you want to give her advice, that’s fine, but I can’t ignore or tolerate your interference with my wife’s wellbeing. It’s not your place.”

“Illumi,” Kikyo said, her voice frayed on the edges in an overly dramatic panic you’d learned to associate with the woman, “You can’t be taking her side, not over your own mother’s-”

“I’m not,” Illumi stopped her, his stoic tone such a strange contrast to her emotional one. It forced Kikyo to pause, the silence thick with awful tension. “My wife is my own concern. If I can’t continue to trust you to remember that that, I’ll be forced to reconsider your place in the lives of my future children.”

That particular threat made your chest clench, being that it was one of the few you knew could actually affect Kikyo. She’d made her interest in you having children, her grand-babies, no secret.

“What are you saying, Illumi!?” Kikyo demanded, giving up all pretenses and throwing her silverware to the table with a metallic  _thunk_. It made you flinch, although the dull sound had nothing on her hysterically shrill voice. “Why would you say something like that? Don’t make rash decisions that you’ll come to regret later!”

“I’m not. This is a warning,” Illumi told her calmly, “If I learn that you’re harassing her again, I’ll put the necessary rules in place to ensure you can’t continue to do so.”

The two looked at each other from across the table for a stretch of a few seconds that might as well have been an eternity. You’d never seen Illumi directly confront Kikyo like this; there was usually no reason for him to. Despite the usual peace between them, he was absolutely steady, his expression conveying no strong emotions, but his intent made clear. He said it wasn’t for you, and maybe it wasn’t really, but Illumi was still defending you.

By the time Kikyo relaxed and the tension slipped, you felt strangely warm.

“I can’t believe this… Illumi…” Kikyo said, her voice trembling oddly. “You’ve really become such a fine husband, haven’t you?”


	66. Trash Quartet reacting to being called Beautiful

 

**_CHROLLO_ **

 

Chrollo’s dark eyes slowly rolled to the side, looking at you without moving his head from the bowed position he held it in while lost in serious thought. You almost regretted the careless words, but they certainly weren’t a lie. That was more apparent than ever when he looked at you, the light shining in brightening the dark of his eyes into a beautifully intense gray.

Then he let out a little huff of a laugh, his lips curling into a smirk as he full straightened out. Embarrassment for your thoughtless comment finally caught up to you, but Chrollo spoke before you could try to awkwardly explain it away.

“Are you so starved for my attention you’ll resort to clumsy seduction?” he asked, his voice warm with humor. You opened your mouth to contradict the notion that you were trying to seduce him, but Chrollo continued before you could, “That’s fine,” he held up a hand, motioning for you to go on with a teasing smile, “I’m listening. Please, continue.”

 

**_PARISTON_ **

 

Pariston first looked surprised, and for a moment you believed you’d managed to shock him, but then he laughed. It wasn’t really a mean laugh, but it made you feel embarrassed all the same, stoking a feeling of regret within you for speaking without thinking.

“No, no, you’re too kind,” he finally told you, meeting your eyes with a wide smile, “Besides, isn’t that meant to be my line? Men aren’t usually called beautiful.”

“But you are,” you defended yourself, wholeheartedly believing it. With his messy hair, shiny smile, and coffee warm sparkling eyes, Pariston was indisputably beautiful in your eyes. Besides, you knew that he was aware of it even without you having to point it out, it wasn’t as if he was particularly secret about his special type of charming vanity.

Pariston laughed again at your answer, a short sound that made his eyes flash.

“How sweet,” he cooed, “Should I think of a way to thank you?”

 

**_ILLUMI_ **

 

“Eh? Beautiful?” Illumi asked, his stoic expression giving way to slight surprise. You blinked, taken aback by his energetic response.

“Yes,” you said, your voice softened by hesitance, “Is that okay?” you asked, wondering if you’d somehow managed to offend with your use of that word, “I only meant that you’re… Attractive.”

“I know what you meant,” Illumi told you, falling back into his impassive demeanor, “I was only confused by your choice of word.”

“Beautiful?” you asked, “It’s true.” There were few other words to describe him really. Illumi captured an eerie type of beauty with his impossibly pale skin and glossy dark eyes and hair.

“You think so?” he asked, holding your gaze. Trying to tell if you were being honest? Illumi finally hummed, looking away without any further reaction.  

 

**_HISOKA_ **

 

You were certain that Hisoka’s eyes had blown wide in shock at your compliment, even if he arranged his features into a smile only a second later. It gave you somewhat of a rush to know you’d managed to surprise him with something so simple, especially considering that was usually his thing. Of course, that feeling was ruined as soon as it struck.

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” he asked silkily, “I usually prefer more compelling lines, but in your case I might make an exception.”

You frowned at him, but that only made his smile deepen.

“I wasn’t flirting,” you told him sternly, avoiding his eyes with a flare of embarrassment, “I only meant that I like this shade of red… It suits you.” His freshly dyed hair did, in fact make him,

“You think it makes me… Beautiful,” Hisoka repeated the word, looking all too pleased with the notion. Maybe, just maybe, you saw a bit of actual happiness in that smile. “How sweet of you to say so.”


	67. Pariston POV Prompt: "I will destroy everything in my way until I have you."

Pariston was  _bored_.

The other Zodiacs were scattered around the world attending to their own interests, the Chairman away and leaving Pariston to handle things by himself. It simply wasn’t necessary for any of them to concern themselves with business when the Association had fallen into an endlessly complicated lull of business. But not Pariston. No, while they were all out, he performed his very best in his duties as Vice Chairman.

There was nothing particularly glamorous about it, but the truth of the matter was that the Association required an enormous amount work to stay running, to support the Hunter’s in their various ventures. That, in its own way, could be quite interesting. At the very least, it demanded his constant attention.

But, as the proverb went, ‘All work and no play makes jack a dull boy’.

Oh, Pariston did enjoy the self sacrifice of it. He was the dedicated and committed Vice Chairman, the man who was willing to put the good of the Association before his own personal endeavors. And, there was some entertainment to be found even within these endless stretches of monotony, a challenge created from balancing it all together, weaving lies and plans and creating his own fun in the moments he was left to his own devices.  

Even still, Pariston was _bored_.

For that reason, you really never even stood a chance; the very first second you entered the boardroom was the moment it was too late.

You smiled as you introduced yourself, as you explained that you had been hired for one of the recently vacated positions that dealt with maintaining positive relationships with sponsors and donors.

“I’m very honored and excited to work with you all!” you exclaimed energetically, as if oblivious to the cold disinterest everyone else had brought into the early morning meeting. Even a cute, young thing like you wasn’t able to rouse up a grin or two in return.

Except for Pariston. He was more than happy to return that smile, even if nobody else did. 

Yes, you looked like something  _fun_. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say you were hired as a sacrificial lamb, a desperate effort on the part of the hiring committee to force Pariston’s focus his boredom on something other than them. Such a cruel thing to do, even if was only unintentionally. Cruel… But you seemed so  _eager_  to have been lead to the slaughtering house that was the Hunter’s Association and, more specifically, Pariston’s attention.

Could he believe that something like that would happen on accident? 

The meeting passed swiftly, each minute spent focused on you in favor of the buzzing drone explaining the updated details on communications. Normally, Pariston would find fun in playing with the already grumpy room of people, but, for once, he was distracted. He only put in a half effort with the energetic derailing comments, and hardly took any pleasure in the annoyed glares considering you never gave him one.

No, your eyes were wide and sincere. When you looked at him, it was with the same seriousness you took the rest of the presentation. Innocent, naive, and  _young-_ surprisingly so for the position you now had. At face value, you embodied those traits perfectly, didn’t you? Wearing professionally cute yet modest clothes and seemingly oblivious to the gazes cast upon you from not only Pariston, but several other curious and appraising individuals, it seemed you weren’t overly concerned with appearances. You were quiet, professionally listening to every detail of the presentation with your full attention, you even went so far as to studiously take notes.

But, no woman, especially a girl who had landed such a fine position at the Hunter’s Association, could possibly be that guileless. You put on such a good show, and you were undoubtedly able to convince everyone else of your virtue, but it was too perfect. Too on the nose.

By the time the meeting was over, he was decided. You would serve as excellent entertainment to get him through this dry spell, you poor, tragic little thing.

Not that he really pitied you. Wearing purity as a costume in the way another woman might wear low necklines and red lipstick was an interesting choice, far more suited to your cute disposition, but that only made it more desirable to strip away, didn’t it? It was as if you were taunting him. Pariston wanted to lay you bare, to expose you completely and delight in the knowledge of what you were truly hiding with such a facade. Not that he wasn’t interested in what he might find under your annoyingly tasteful cardigan sweater, but that was only a perk when he considered what pleasurable exploits he might enjoy with you.

The smile that came upon Pariston’s face as he stood up must have been a bit too indicative of his thoughts, if the slightly frightened face of the presenter was anything to go by as Pariston oh-so-kindly thanked him for such an  _excellent_  presentation. He adjusted the expression slightly, it wasn’t as if he wanted to scare you off just yet, and approached the small crowd gathered around you.

It seemed some of the men had found the energy to smile now. Pariston wasn’t surprised that you were a popular figure, considering how nonthreatening and approachably sweet and modestly attractive you were. Pariston might normally be inclined to say you desired the attention, but he could see the edge of discomfort in your stance, hear it in your voice. 

It was cute, giving him a nice little thrill to see that you were too polite to defend yourself even while uncomfortable. Was it a lie, easily given when you were in a relatively safe place where nothing terrible could come of you putting manners over self respect? Or, maybe you really would smile and cower all the same in a situation of true danger. 

“My, my, perhaps we should allow her some space?” Pariston cut in to the small group, “It is her first day, after all, and I’m sure she’s feeling very overwhelmed.”

In contrast to the rest of them, who regarded Pariston with poorly concealed distaste, you looked at him with wide eyes, full of awe and maybe a little embarrassment. Oblivious again to the reactions and behaviors of those around you. Did you not see the way they reacted to him enough to be uneasy, or did you not care? 

“Thank you,” you said, snapped from your surprise and forcing a smile, “But it’s okay, really, I’m glad to get to know everybody! I didn’t expect everyone to be so nice.”

“We should be getting back anyhow,” one of the men offered you, smiling again at your nearly overly sweet response. The others agreed, dispersing with faint farewells. Pariston couldn’t help but inwardly laugh that they knew him well enough to be wary, yet they still left you alone with him. 

“Thank you… I know everyone means well, but… This is a lot to take in,” you said bashfully, shifting your weight from foot to foot with your hands clasped together, shy.

Pariston felt a hot flash of doubt that anyone could be this fine of an actress, put off by the effortless artlessness of your behavior, but with doubt came a fresh wave of excitement. The need to know, to unravel.

“So, thank you, Vice Chairman Hill,” you continued with a warmer tone and a wider smile, blissfully oblivious to his thoughts.

It was a real smile that you wore for him, and it looked so genuine on your pretty face. Pariston wondered what he could do that would make it disappear, to see what your  _pretty face_ would look like while split in pain or fear, streaming with the drugstore beauty products you sparingly wore.

“It’s really a pleasure to meet you!” your last words were fully enthusiastic, the bashful shyness pushed aside in place of your upbeat attitude as you unfolded your hands and held one out.

“The pleasure is all mine!” Pariston responded with his own shining smile, accepting your hand in his. Soft, small, and delicate, feeling it only added to the pleasant sensation of your annoyingly adorable fragility in the seconds before he let it drop. 

“It’s truly wonderful to see such a promisingly bright addition to the Association!” he lowered his voice in mock secrecy, lifting a hand to mockingly conceal his mouth, “As you can see, this place is in need of a bit of lightening up.”

You laughed lightly at the charade, a soft sound.

“Well, I doubt there’s anything anyone could do to make people happier at a meeting held first thing in the morning,” you replied sweetly, being nice about people who weren’t around to hear. Pariston laughed in return, although the well-meaning sentiment rubbed him the wrong way. 

“Oh? But you seem happy,” he said, pretending confusion, “Could it be that… You have some sort of secret..?” Pariston teased with faux drama. You laughed again, shaking your head in what seemed like actual amusement. It wasn’t directly flirtatious, but wasn’t that the point of feigning innocence? 

“I’m just excited to be here,” you responded truthfully, then your eyes landed behind him, on the wall mounted clock, “Oh! Speaking of that, I should get going! I’d hate to make people wait for me on my first day. It was very nice to meet you, Mr Hill!”

“Yes, of course!” he responded with a smile. You looked a bit frantic, anxious at the thought of being late, but you still took the time to give him a wide and sweet smile. 

“If you have any questions or concerns, or need anything at all, be sure to let me know! My office is always open!” he told you enthusiastically, splaying his hands in a gesture of welcome.

“Thank you, Mr Hill,” you said, “Have a good day!”

“And you as well,” he said as you hurried out, looking over your shoulder once with an expression he could only call coy before being gone from view, leaving the slight floral scent of some cheap body mist or lotion in the air behind you.

Pariston let out a shaky breath, and another, and another, the sounds devolving into a quiet laugh.

He had been bored, and you weren’t quite the fix he knew would remove that aching feeling, but that didn’t stifle his excitement. Even if it was only fleeting, he had a feeling that you were going to be a great deal of fun.

His little ingenue.

“How nice…” he cooed under his breath, smiling a smile that couldn’t be called friendly by any stretch of the imagination, “I’ll destroy everything in my way until I have you.”


	68. Yandere Chrollo Prompt: "Tell me how much you love me."

Chrollo pulled away at the last second, as he had every other time you’d gotten too close to finishing.

The disappointment and senseless despair made you whine, nearly inconsolable at the unfairness of being brought so close and denied yet again. You struggled with your bound hands, your body arching away from the bed in a useless expression of the simmering tension that was burning you alive.

In stark contrast to you, teary eyed and flushed with fever heat, Chrollo looked completely unruffled and composed. Poised between your legs and gazing up at you with shiny dark eyes and a small smile, the most you could say about the effect this had all had on him was that his hair was a bit messy.

“Have you had enough yet?” Chrollo asked in a sweet voice. Always sweet when he tortured you, his voice inviting and warm enough to tempt you into forgetting who he was. It made you shiver, your desire pulsing through you with an embarrassingly physical reaction to the sound.

At this point, you wanted to say it, to give in and to beg for him to stop this or to touch you or to  _fuck you_ , but pride was a fickle thing. A stupid, cumbersome pretense of the dignity you had already lost. Still, yours rejected the idea of submission so intensely you knew you couldn’t even form the words.

So you stayed silent, ignoring the way your body ached and burned.

Chrollo laughed at your silence. It was a sound that raised chills across your bare skin, one of genuine amusement, maybe even delight.

“Holding onto your pride, even now…” he mused with something like affection, trailing his fingers over your swollen and over-stimulated clit and making your hips jump with a frantic little jerk, “Considering the position you’re in, it would be far easier if you availed yourself of that.”

Chrollo pushed a finger into you, the telling sound of your wetness overshadowed by the whimpery moan you couldn’t bite back.

“I thought you would submit by now… But this isn’t bad, either.”

The odd affection took on a hint of praise as Chrollo slowly curled that finger inside of you, the small movement nearly enough to make your vision white out as your body desperately strove to find satisfaction in it.

“No… You’re even more fun than I hoped. I wonder how much longer you can hold out… You’re probably feeling quite a lot of discomfort by now,” he pulled his finger from you, drawing a pathetically keening sort of whine from your throat. Chrollo both soothed that pain and worsened by pushing two of his fingers into you, the intrusion aided perfectly by how obscenely wet you were.

“Shut up,” you gasped out, your uneven breathing, needy moans, and fresh tears taking all of the intended bite from the sentiment.

“You know what would make me stop,” Chrollo said, running the nails of his other hand over your painfully sensitive and already bruised thigh to add a bit of pain to the overwhelming agonizing pleasure of his teasing fingers.

You knew what he wanted, of course you knew, the words were already on your lips, the only thing that would make him stop with this torture. Just three words, so simple, so easy. Chrollo reminded you anyway, his voice a warmly affectionate plea,

“Tell me how much you love me.”


	69. Shalnark Prompt: “Oh, don’t worry! This won’t hurt! Well, it won’t hurt me. You? No it’ll hurt really really bad.”

Maybe it was because Shalnark had begun treating you so normally as of late, inviting you to play games and do things you could sort of imagine normal couples doing, even mentioning that soon he might take you out of the apartment that had become your prison.

Maybe it was because now that you weren’t constantly trapped and bound, now that you had some semblance of personal agency and freedom, you felt a sort of confidence you hadn’t had before.

Or, maybe it was just because you were stupid, having forgotten the horror of the way Shalnark had treated you at first simply because of his sudden warmer attitude.

So, like the perfect little fool you were, you walked right into the tempting trap he’d laid out for you, making your attempt at escape when he had gone out for a few hours.

As per your plan, getting out of the closet space Shalnark locked you in was difficult, but not impossible. You managed to circumvent the lock altogether by simply breaking the door, falling with an ugly grunt onto the floor when the wood finally broke and gave way.

You toppled onto the floor gracelessly, adding new bruises to the barely healed ones patterned across your knees and elbows. The pain of the impact, of the splintered wood piercing your skin, was the last thing on your mind as you mentally regrouped to continue. You didn’t know -you didn’t even think to check- that you weren’t alone until he spoke.  

“That was fast. I didn’t expect you to think of breaking the door right away,” Shalnark told you, his jarring yet easygoing voice freezing your gasping breaths and thundering heart, “And without hurting yourself too much. That’s pretty impressive!” There was a note of approval in his tone, but it was edged dangerously with a sound of unhappiness.

Slowly, your eyes rose to where he was towering above you, looking down with an unreadable expression. You couldn’t speak, barely able to remember how to breathe in your state of broken panic, frozen solid in your painful position on the floor. He let out a dramatic sigh, crouching down to more easily meet your eyes. They lingered there for a moment, leaving you lost in the suspended grip of lovely green, before flicking behind you.

“That’ll be a pain to replace,” Shalnark griped with a lighthearted upset ill suited to the situation, “I didn’t think you’d be  _that_  destructive… Maybe we’ll just move.”

While he was musing about the door, you were working on fully registering his words, letting them set in against the part of your brain that was still reeling in senseless shock.

“You didn’t think…” you began, piecing together a whole thought word by word. Shalnark’s eyes jumped back to yours, wide and uncomfortably innocent. Somehow, they helped you organize your thoughts, to find the conclusion among the confused mess. “You set me up,” you finally accused, the words filled with surprise despite how obvious they were.

Shalnark stared at you for a moment, then he burst out laughing.

It all made sense. He had never trusted you, or begun to let down his guard, it was all a trick.

“Why are you… Why are you laughing?” you demanded, your eyes burning with tears. It was stupid -incomprehensible, really- but you felt betrayed.

“I’m sorry,” Shalnark said, the apology ringing painfully false considering his bright smile, “But you look so pitiful right now. When you look at me like that, I almost feel bad for what I’m going to do to you.”

Your heart sank  _hard_ , the painfully heavy weight gutting you and leaving you hollow, filled only with icy hot dread.

“What do you mean?” you asked in a hushed tone. But the terror you felt knew all too well what he meant. Acting out earned punishment, Shalnark had established that early on.

“You’ve already guessed, haven’t you?” he asked with guileless wide eyes, “This was a test. I wanted to check your loyalty, so I pretended to trust you by giving you more freedom, and then I left you with an opportunity to escape.” Shalnark frowned. “Unfortunately, you failed the test. Not only were you trying to escape, but there was a chance you could have injured yourself in the process.”

The tone of worry in his voice tripped you up for how convincing it was, the sound could almost reason away the rest of Shalnark’s words for how genuine it seemed. But you knew better, even if your heart gave an unhelpful tug towards believing that slightest bit of humanity in your captor.   

“So you.. You baited me into this,” you said in hurt disgust, clinging to the sickened anger to wipe away the rest of your bubbling emotions, “You set me up to fail. Why? So you could… Could hurt me?”  

Shalnark blinked at you in something resembling confusion, then smiled in amusement.

“If that’s all I wanted, I could’ve hurt you anytime,” he reminded you warmly. 

While your stomach twisted at hearing those words, Shalnark’s expression sobered up, his serious green eyes locking with yours. 

“But I’d prefer not to do so without a reason, because then it won’t have any meaning when I punish you for misbehavior. It’s the same for being rewarded. If I reward you even when you misbehave, you won’t learn anything,” Shalnark told you with a vaguely superior honesty, as if explaining a simple concept to a child, “If you had stayed in your room, I would have rewarded you by taking you out tonight. Instead, I’m going to have to punish you.”

His humorless expression melted into a faint cheerful smile, making his next words all the more cruel.

“Hopefully, it will stop you from trying this again in the future.”

Something inside of you snapped. 

It had happened before, this sensation of breaking, but in the time that Shalnark had treated you better, you’d forgotten how truly devastating it was to hear him so casually and happily display his cruelty. How matter of fact he was in spelling out the misery of your reality. You’d begun to buy into his sweet smiles and upbeat attitude.

You’d forgotten that he was exactly the type of man that would trick you into damning yourself just for some cheap entertainment.

“Shal…” you said, your voice wobbling unsteadily as you uttered words you already knew were useless, “I’m sorry. Really, I… Won’t do it again.” 

The pathetic emotional appeal was useless, only serving to make Shalnark’s smile widen.

“Are you going to cry?” he asked, the utter lack of cruelty and clear delight in his question making it hurt worse, somehow.

“No.. Shal, I-I’m really sorry. Please don’t do this,” you plead again, more insistently, “I’m so sorry.” 

Shalnark laughed, a purely joyful sound.

“I forgive you,” he told you sweetly, “But that that’s not why you’re being punished.” He stood up easily, extending a hand down to you. “Now, come on, stand up. I found some new toys for us to play with tonight.”

You looked up to meet Shalnark’s unreadable eyes, so frightening despite how they were framed charmingly by his kind smile. Staring into them, you were hit with a painful thud of understanding. There was no way out of this. After a second of your pathetic consideration, you reached out with your trembling hand to take his and stood on unsteady legs.

“What are you going to do to me?” you asked, hushed and scared of the answer, yet desperately needing to know.

Shalnark laughed lightly, his hand reaching out to ruffle your hair with a gentle affection.

“Oh, don’t worry! Nothing that will hurt,” his smile changed a bit as he turned, grabbing your wrist in a grip just a shade way from being painful and grinning at you over his shoulder,  “Well, it won’t hurt me. You? No, it’ll hurt really, really bad.”


	70. Incubus Hisoka Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, just so you know I post every day on my tumblr agent-cupcake.tumblr.com (it's a pretty happening place)

The nightmare ended, the contents forgotten as you escaped to the waking world. One thing remained, however, even through your hazy recall.

“But, you’re still not ready…” his voice, that voice, was amused, but still tipped with a softened disappointment. Warm fingers released your chin. “Fine, I’ll wait for the _fruit to ripen_. Until then-”

“Sweet dreams,” your roommate said to you as you shuffled your zombie feet into bed.

“You too,” you called back, your voice slurring through the fog of the Ambien you’d taken to help with your recent insomnia. It didn’t abate the anxiety, but made the need to sleep too irresistible to fight.

It was there, caught in the twilight zone of almost-sleep, that your mind offered you a memory. The thought was vague, a slip of something that had happened in a dream… No, in a nightmare. The caramel smooth voice haunted you like a ghost, the real words that had been his last sendoff.

_“I’ll leave you to your dreaming.”_

That voice, that sentiment, tugged on something terrible within the deep creases of your over-exhausted brain, but your burst of panic was dulled by the inescapable clutches of the drug lulling you into unconsciousness. You had no choice to succumb, but it turned out he wasn’t lying.

Sleep didn’t invite you into Hisoka’s Nightmare carnival, as it had so often since the demon had first possessed you. No, these nightmares were all your own.

“You look tired,” your roommate told you.

You grunted in response, your mind clouded and confused as you set down your food at the table.

“Bad dreams?” she continued, trying to lure you into conversation that she should have realized by now was a lost cause. Those words pulled at a memory, but those inconsistent and patchy reminders were all but pointless to try and chase. You could never truly remember anything you dreamed of.

With a grunt in place of a ‘yes’, you raised your cup to your mouth, only to spill the milk all over yourself and the table.

“Are you okay?” she asked now, her voice full of concern as she stood up to grab napkins from the center holder. You stared at the perfectly smooth whiteness of the spilt milk without reaction, staring with dead eyes.

“But of course.”

He spoke theatrically, moving his hand with a flourish as he circled around you. Somewhere from far away, you heard carousel music.

“Haven’t you heard the stories of demons who visit people in their dreams with  _dishonorable_  intent?” he asked, emphasizing the word with a smirk while his unnatural yellow eyes scanned your body.

“Incubi,” you responded flatly, your voice quiet with disbelieving hush. His smile widened.

“Very good,” he praised you with delight. Then his hand extended, eyes fixing on yours. “You may call me Hisoka. I’ve taken you into my dream so you might… Keep me company.” Hisoka paused, his tongue running across his lips suggestively. “I can already tell we’re going to make good friends.”

You blinked, drawing in a big breath of air that smelled overly sweet, but there was also a note of a more musky base, something distinctly sensual and heavy. It was uncomfortably present and  _real_.

“Friends..?” you asked blankly, unable to process what was happening. But, it wasn’t happening. It couldn’t, because this wasn’t real. You were dreaming, this was a dream! Still, your brain chugged on, trying to make sense of it all. “But Incubi are..”

“Demons of lust?” Hisoka finished knowingly, his voice taking on a sultry tone that made your stomach twist, “You’re right, but I prefer many different kinds of games,” his voice lowered even further, “Shall I tell you the rules?”

“Rules?” you asked.

“You’ve been getting sloppy,” your coach said with a frown, “When we’re practicing like this, you can’t be so violent.” He let out a sigh, his eyes filled with the same concern you’d seen in the eyes of everybody else around you. “If you’re going through something, I’m not sure fighting is a good outlet. It might not be my place, but if you need someone to talk to-”

“I’m fine,” you snapped, your chest clenching and shoulders tensing. At the way his expression tightened, you tried to relax, forcing a smile, “I’ll ease up, okay?”

Coach still looked unsure. You hated that expression, hated that everybody was treating you like you were some sort of sickly invalid just because of a little insomnia. Since you’d begun taking medication for it, it seemed to only have gotten worse, and your moods suffered as a result.

“I still can’t let you fight after you broke Rebecca’s arm. I have to be fair to everyone else. You broke the rules, so you’re on probation for the next few weeks,” he said, “That means no sparring.”

“I know what that means,” you said sharply, looking away from him with a flash of red hot anger rippling through your body. To react so strongly was silly, his logic made sense, it was fair.

But there was a gnarled part of your heart that just wanted to hurt somebody. That wanted to fight and to win no matter who your opponent. Tears stung your eyes, some strange emotion of helpless rage pulling them to the surface.

“Yeah. That’s fine. I’m gonna go, then,” you said in a forcibly even voice, standing up jerkily.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Coach warned, his concern only pissing you off further.

“I won’t.”    

Your disgusted denial was harsh with obvious fear, spoken against the thundering metronome of your heartbeat. Hisoka just smiled, as if he were pleased with your rejection at his offer of sex.

“That’s fine,” he cooed, “There’s plenty of other fun ways to play together if you won’t consent.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” you asked, a sick curiosity urging you to respond as he wanted to that obvious taunt.

“Fighting can be an arousing experience, don’t you think?” Hisoka asked, pushing a sort of salaciousness into the words, “That’s why I picked  _you_  to be my toy. I have no interest in the weak and boring. I prefer toys who understand me.”

“I don’t…” your voice was filled with horrified revolution, but even more-so because Hisoka wasn’t entirely wrong. Except on one count, which he had to be wrong, he  _had_ to be, “There’s… There’s no way you and I are alike at all.”

Hisoka laughed, the sound holding enough voice that it could almost be described as a sort of moan, that word being the only one you could think of to describe the lewd noise that made your breath catch and heart drop.

“Your eyes…” he groaned, “With a bit of growth, you’ll be nearly  _unbearably_  ripe. No matter what you choose in the end, I know it’ll be great fun.”

“You’re sick.”

Your roommate confronted you with those words as soon as you got home from another night of having not slept, worn out from spending the morning running in an attempt to work out the strange energy that plagued you despite your exhaustion.

It hadn’t helped.

“You really should go to the doctor, this isn’t healthy,” she continued, following you to the bathroom and forcing her way in even as you were hunched over the toilet, sick from having pushed yourself too hard while running. You expected blood to fill the bowl as you retched, the metallic taste matching up to the severe pains in your chest, but it was only painfully acidic bile.

Why had you expected blood?

“I just ran too hard,” you responded to her as you flushed it down and rinsed your mouth from the sink tap, downing some painkillers from behind the mirror in a vain attempt to mitigate the headache you knew they wouldn’t touch. You had class today. That would be fun.

“I’m not talking about that,” she said. Just like Coach, just like everyone, there was a sincere concern in her eyes. “I don’t know what happened or why, but… You need to get some help.”

A foggy taste of some forgotten memory -A dream? A fantasy?- rose up, weighing heavily on the very tip of your tongue, so close you could almost taste the sickly sweet flavor, but it faded just as quickly as it had surfaced.

“I’m fine,” you finally told her with a resolute stand-offishness, shaking your head and turning on the shower.

She said nothing, leaving you with one last look of angry concern.

The door slammed.

Your roommate didn’t say goodnight, she hadn’t for a long time. All you ever did was fight these days. The slamming of her door was petty, but maybe you didn’t blame her. Maybe you didn’t care all.  

It was hard to care about anything when you were this tired. So, your head foggy with the drug haze from the pills that hadn’t helped one bit in the weeks you’d been taking them, you crawled into bed.

_“I’ll leave you to your dreaming.”_

This time, your fear was resigned. You were too worn out to fight anymore.

Perhaps that’s why he came so quickly, possessing your dreams as soon as you were asleep enough to have them.

“Hisoka?” you asked in surprise, blinking into the darkness of your room.

The drug haze lingered, casting an odd sort of confusion as you fixed pieces of sensory information together and attempted weave your understanding of what was happening into a complete thought. But things were too fluid, moving too much and too smoothly, flowing together and apart and away and together, details coalescing and dissolving seamlessly.

Dreaming the way a human dreamed, your reality was lost and without structure.

Oh, but you were warm. The edges of your vision softened, your brain enticed by the smell of something sweet and musky, artificial and human. Sickening and horrible and delicious and irresistible. The scent surrounded you and overwhelmed you, filled you full to bursting, to gasping, to crying out.

“My precious toy,” he cooed. Warm, hot, utterly solid in the way he was pressed against you. Life had become so hollow and bleak, but he was color and heat. Real, he was real and oh God did you need him, clinging to him desperately as his lips made their way over your cheek, across your jaw, trailing down your neck.

Your hands squeezed his shoulders, sliding across his soft skin, digging into the muscle and pushing up into his hair to tangle there while your hips tried desperately to find some satisfaction in rutting against him through the tragic barrier of clothes.

“Hisoka,” you gasped without restraint. He bit into your neck, a playfully pleasurable feeling that made you moan. “Take me,  _please_ , Hisoka,” you begged shamelessly, pulling on his hair, arching against him needily.

He laughed, the sound a warm rumble against your chest.

“Okay,” Hisoka agreed sweetly, rolling his hips against yours and pulling you closer to whisper into your ear, “On one condition-”

“If you can hit me, you’ll win,” your opponent childishly taunted from across the alley.

Somehow, those words struck an ugly chord within you, sparked up a special sort of anger usually reserved for pushing away the people closest to you. You couldn’t remember why, and you shouldn’t have had such a violent reaction to the words of a drunk college student who truly believed he could beat you in a fight.

He was just an idiot.

But, what did that make you, picking senseless fights in cheap bars on Friday nights while slightly inebriated and all alone?

He might have been an idiot, but you were pathetic.

That didn’t make it any less satisfying when he came in hard and you blocked, punching him soundly in the face. His nose crunched beneath your fist, blood spurting dramatically from it while he fell with an ugly grunt. It filled you with a flush of heat, with desire.

And then you turned to retch in the trash pile behind you, your exhausted body rejecting the drinks you’d downed earlier. 

Idiot, meet pathetic.

Falling to the disgusting gravel ground beside him, you reached into your pocket and pulled out a fistful of napkins you had kept in case  _your_  nose got broken, holding them out the guy.

After a second, he took them.

The pain of your knuckles and the slight rush still remaining from the act of violence allowed you to recall better times, something from before the living nightmare you’d been stuck in.

There was nothing like fighting on the mat, testing your skill against another human being. You used to do it for the sport, for the love of it, but now all you craved was violence.

All you wanted was to win.  

You bounced from foot to foot, heart pounding and breathing deeply even. Win. You wanted to win so badly. The desire arose with a breathtaking and sudden viciousness. You had wanted to win when you picked pointless bar fights, you had wanted it the last time you saw Him, and you wanted it now. You wanted to hit your opponent, to break him, really.

A rage that felt like lust for victory and for blood short-circuited down your arms, through your legs to your feet. It fizzled at your fingertips and between your legs. It made your head dizzy and focused, made your insides shiver with excitement.

“Go.” It wasn’t a referee’s voice, but one that echoed through the endless arena like that of a God. His voice, that voice, a voice you knew and a voice you hated, a voice you longed to impress.

You attacked, going offense because you knew -you knew!- that you could win.

You missed.

Your opponent was gone. Twisting around, you saw that he had somehow teleported across the mat, standing stationary. So you tried again.

And again.

Each time, he was gone before you could attack, not even attacking in return. This wasn’t a fight. There was no satisfaction or fulfillment for your need of stimulation, your desire for the give and take of pain.

Tears of frustration welled in your eyes, your helpless anger mounting as the score was continually called in his favor despite the fact that he hadn’t landed any attacks. It was a restlessly needy type of disappointment, the denial of some deep set pleasure that you craved above all else.

You shouted, throwing yourself at him again, only to be restrained by a set of unyielding arms wrapped tightly around you. Suffocating and constricting, they held you still while your body screamed its need to attack with the animalistic frenzy of a rabid dog.

“You’re still too weak,” Hisoka said into your ear. You knew this man, not the demon himself, but an echo of your mind. Possessing your own dreams, poisoning your mind without even having to try.

“Let go of me!” you shouted, struggling to get from his grasp.

You were a little drunk, pissed off, and had picked the wrong fight. The beefy security guard finally released you, sending you stumbling out into the night.

“Hey, fuck you!” you said, approaching him again. You knew the types of guys hired for nasty places like this, you knew what would happen.

The backhand was still particularly satisfying, even if it made you unable to hear what he said afterwards. You could probably guess, anyway. When your head stopped spinning, you picked yourself up and began to make your way home, walking with a sort of half hope that someone would attack you.

No such luck. By the time you got back, it was late, you were sober, and your face was bruised and swollen. Your roommate was in the kitchen, presumably making a midnight snack. You had to pass her to get an ice pack, enduring her judgmental stare that you definitely deserved.

“You got in a fight?” she asked coldly. You shrugged.

“It was pretty one sided,” you responded, wincing as you pressed the ice pack to your face. She snorted derisively.

“How very disappointing.”

Hisoka’s microphoned voice echoed through the big top circus tent, bouncing around in your head while the spotlight blinded you and rendered you limp in his arms. You tried to blink into it, blinded and burning, and in flashes you were able to see the audience in the stands around you. It was packed full, rows and rows of the faceless watching you.  

“It’s a real pity,” Hisoka continued, “These people came to see a show.”

The audience began to boo at you, to shout in contempt for the failed performance you couldn’t quite remember putting on. Hundreds of the empty and angry rioted in the tent around you, turning the lights a dizzying red, a terrifying magenta, flashing and screaming and hating.

“Don’t you think you should find a way to entertain them?” Hisoka asked over the roar, releasing you and allowing you to stumble clumsily to your knees. You could barely see with the lights flashing, barely breath as fearful anxiety ate at you.

Mounting panic screamed that you couldn’t be here anymore. If you stayed, you knew with certainty that you would die.

Stiff and uncoordinated, your body moving as if it were made of lead and breathing in shallow gasps, you got to your feet and began to run. There was no instantly recognizable way out, but the edges weren’t concrete, surely there was an exit, or an escape, and besides, you were dreaming, weren’t you?

“Are you sure about that?” Hisoka sounded so amused in responding to your thoughts, his voice louder than the thundering audience, distracting you for a second too long and allowing the other performers to catch you before you could get out.

The other performers of the circus act… Toys. A life sized collection of mixed dolls, a hoard of scratched vinyl, painted porcelain, or canvas skins; chipped glass, button, or painted eyes; ball jointed bodies and those made of thick, unarticulated sacks of stuffing shaped like a human; faces stitched crudely onto ripped and fraying burlap and ones delicately painted on. Dozens of them, done up in dozens of styles and materials.

They grabbed you with hands you couldn’t fight off, their sheer volume too overwhelming to fight as they pulled you and held you, hurting you and surrounding you. You screamed and fought, but it was as if you were drowning in them, the frightening imagery and sheer strength too much for you to withstand.

“Since you won’t consent, I’ll have to make you mine in a  _different way_ ,” Hisoka said, standing close enough for his voice to swarm and buzz in your head, “My precious toy…”

It clicked right then. That’s what these monster performers were. Hisoka’s toys, you were all Hisoka’s toys at Hisoka’s Circus Show.

“STOP!” you screamed in blood freezing terror when your struggling failed, or at least you attempted to. 

Before the single syllable had even finished, one of the dolls slit your throat, stopping your scream with an ugly wet gurgle. Plastic fingers opened the wound to remove the muscle and tissue while you were held still, slopping it onto the floor while you watched in horror. Other hands were quick to fill the new void with with stuffing, the slice sewn up neatly.

Why weren’t you dead.

Next came your torso, naked now and easily cut open down the center, chopped clean at each shoulder. Your arms hit the stage floor with a dull thud. Blood gushed and emptied from the cavity as fabric and vinyl hands dug out your bloody viscera and snapped your bones, pulling coils of intestines from you to splatter across the floor, quickly replacing them with thick stuffing.

Why weren’t you dead.

Your new arms fit perfectly, attached with thick twine and smooth casings before the skin was expertly stitched up.

Why weren’t you dead.

Legs next, cut off the same as your arms and replaced by beautifully airbrushed limbs. Much prettier and well made than your old ones, which were graying and rotting on the floor beneath you. At your new feet was a gruesome mess of blackish blood and decaying limbs and organs. Maggots and bugs swarmed it all, having arrived so quickly it begged the question: 

Had you been rotting before?

Why weren’t you dead?

Your hair was brushed out, a costume materialized and fitted perfectly. A performer, a toy, a doll, a dreamer. You blinked, and the other toys were gone. The circus tent was empty, upon closer look, it seemed long-abandoned, heavily deteriorated.  

Without the others to hold you up, you unbalanced on your clumsy new limbs, falling backwards.

“Very nice…” Hisoka said, catching and steadying you, “But there’s something missing, isn’t there?” You couldn’t respond or move -even if you knew what to say or do- your new doll limbs twitching and uncoordinated. 

He turned you around, the bright yellow of his eyes a shade off, the sharpness of his face too exaggerated, and smiled a smile just a bit too wide.

“Dolls have glass eyes.”

Articulated fingers from a doll you hadn’t thought was left reached around you and, with an ease that should have convinced you entirely of the dream-falseness of the situation, pulled out your eyes.

Your body twitched in a too late panic response, your bulky and inflexible limbs unable to struggle or fight the way you wanted to. Unable to do anything at all but submit to the dark.

Taking advantage of the fact that your mouth was open in a silent scream, just about the only movement you had any control over, Hisoka -not Hisoka- pulled you up to a kiss. A violent and dominating kiss, all teeth and tongue. You weren’t sure if you were meeting it or not, you couldn’t tell if you were in pain or not, and you didn’t know because it was dark, endlessly and forever dark, you didn’t know you didn’t know, you didn’t know, you didn’t know.

His mouth left yours to kiss up your cheeks, licking up the bloody tears that fell from your empty eye sockets, his tongue finding the drooping flesh of your eyelids and lapping up the blood welled up there, too. It made you tremble, the question of pain being answered in the dangerously hot feeling that shivered down your spine.

“You  _are_  sweet.”     

A flash of a memory stunned you, then, because this wasn’t right. You had been here before, it had happened once, in a dream. 

No, in a Nightmare.

Blind eyes opened, your vision clearing and blinked rapidly into focus for you to see your bedroom, only barely lit by the very edges of dawn outside your window. You gasped in terrified confusion as your heart pounded, trying to get your bearings and using a shaking hand to turn on your lamp.

Sweat was slicked in a thick layer across your skin, your temperature that of a fever burn, tears were smeared across your face and pillow, and, worst of all, there was an almost unbearably wet ache between your legs.

For once, you could remember. His name, at least. Him, the one who had cursed you.

“Hisoka,” you said quietly, your voice shaking with breathless sobs. He was a demon, wasn’t he? Not the same one from your dreams, but… Could he hear you? Either way, you made the plea. Just in case, just in case. “You need consent and I’ll give it, just please…” You took a deep breath, putting everything into expressing you absolute dire need. “ _Please_.”


	71. Illumi Zoldyck Prompt: "You know you can't escape me, I own you now. You're mine."

“Please, please don’t do this. Please don’t leave us like this, not for them- for him.”

Your mother was hysterical as she begged you to back out now, no longer respecting the pretense of keeping her distaste for your soon-to-be husband and his family a secret. Tears streamed down her reddened face, her hands grasping yours tight enough to hurt. She was a woman who had never been anything less than unshakably strong in your eyes, reduced now to a nearly inconsolable state.

It wasn’t only her pleading gaze that held you still; they all were staring, waiting for the response you couldn’t possibly form while burning beneath the scrutiny of both your new and old family. The charged silence surrounding it all was one of mourning, of death. An apt word considering your wedding reception, arguably one of the most important events in your life, had played out more like a funeral.

“It’s time to go,” Illumi reminded you lightly from behind, drawing all eyes to himself instead. Yes, the awkward affair of dinner and the formality of speeches and toasts had been cleared out of the way, pulling the whole painful thing to its irrevocable conclusion.

Now, it was time to say goodbye.

That was the promise you’d made when accepting Illumi’s proposal, the expectation your family was meant to have brought into these final hours together. Still, looking into your mother’s watery eyes now filled you with horrified doubt. Caught up in the whirlwind spell of your fast paced affair with Illumi, you never pictured this moment. You had never considered what the final farewell would feel like to the people you loved. Not once had you imagined the consequences of your marriage being something so agonizingly difficult.

Goodbye.

To say that word, to follow it up with traitorous vow of love you had only just professed to your soon-to-be husband, would most certainly break her heart. But to agree, to sever your promise to Illumi at this final hour, was impossible. A headache was forming as a sharp piercing sensation behind your forehead the longer you thought, the longer you hesitated.

Illumi said your name, his voice an unhurried prompt. Another reminder. There was no choice. You had already made the binding oaths. Your mother was wrong to think there was any chance you could walk out now, even if you wanted to. It had been too late for that since the first time you kissed him; perhaps sooner.

“I love you,” you finally told her, your voice bearing an apology you knew she’d never accept. Tension deflated, replaced by her sharp recoil of horror, her wet eyes going wide and hands pulling from yours as if you’d burned them. “I love you. But I love him, I… I choose him,” you said, looking from face to face of the family and friends you were abandoning.

They wore masks of anger, of sadness and pain, even of disgust. You felt those things, mirrored and multiplied within yourself, because there was something wrong about this, wasn’t there? But you couldn’t think of that. The headache it gave you was too much, and those thoughts invited an all consuming grief, a threat that would most certainly would unravel you.

In the face of your believed betrayal, this was all you had. A cheap and empty final farewell.

“That’s it, then,” your father said, moving in place as if to protect your mother. There was not a hint of teary-eyed sadness on his harshly composed face, and the way he looked at you might as well have been a glare. Once, you had believed he would walk you down the aisle on your special day, smiling as he gave you away to the love of your life.

“I hope you know what you’re getting into, and that you don’t regret it. If anything happens with those…” he looked behind you, and you knew the word he wanted to say. Freaks. Those freak Zoldyck’s. “Well, you’ll only have yourself to blame.”

And that was all there was to say, really.

 

* * *

 

 

It was like suffocating, like your body couldn’t hold the raging war of doubt and fear and grief. The awful mixture threatened to send you into a spiral once the nightmarish goodbyes were said and done, your family gone forever.

You would never hug your mom again, or laugh with your dad, you’d never see your friends between contracts and sit and enjoy the wild stories of the world. In your adulthood, you’d enjoyed these things less and less, but to confront the idea that you’d never have it again was-

You couldn’t. You absolutely couldn’t.

The worst of it was that your feelings weren’t sympathetic or pitiable, they were the product of the choices you made. Your pain and tears were, at best, selfish, and at worst, detestable. This was the bed you’d made, quite willingly, and now you had to lie in it. You had chosen Illumi. Chosen him out of love… But the love didn’t overshadow this shattering heartbreak. 

And it _was_  heartbreak, a physical sensation of something inside you being cracked in two. A piercing pain echoed by the headache pounding against your forehead.

Breathing unsteadily, pulling in air with little hitching gasps, you braced a hand against your stomach, clenching your other fist as you fought for control over the rampage of emotions.

You had to get a grip. There was no time to mourn the gaping hole left from your torn heart. Not now that your tear-smudged makeup was fixed and your decadently embroidered kimono had been exchanged for the equally elaborate white shiromuku. Not now that you had already made your choice, far past the point of no return. Not now, in the minutes leading up to your ceremonial vows.

The opening of the door made you jump, but the timing wasn’t bad, considering you had only just gotten some semblance of control over yourself. That was especially true when you saw it was Kikyo Zoldyck. You weren’t sure what you would do if she happened to come in while you were having a meltdown. As it was, you were incredibly wary to see her. Your future mother-in-law had been very hot and cold with you since the first time you’d met, and you still had no idea how to determine her moods.

“Is it time?” you asked, your voice full of nerves that you hoped came across only as those of a typical bride.

“Very soon,” Kikyo told you in a mild voice as she approached, a small smile on her lips. Calm, then. You relaxed. “You look very pretty,” she complimented you, “A very pretty bride… Illumi will be pleased.” She smoothed her hands over your shoulders, adjusting the neck a bit; a very motherly gesture.

“You think?” you asked softly, overly aware of how raspy your voice still sounded from crying, part of your mind focused entirely on forcing yourself to stay relaxed beneath her touch, “Sometimes it’s a little hard to tell… With him.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Everything you had on, the traditional clothes and the elaborate styling, was because Illumi preferred it. You didn’t really look like yourself at all, decorated and painted up so elegantly.

“He can be cold,” Kikyo allowed, fondness in her even voice, “But as his mother, I can see how much he likes you.”

Her grip tightened slightly, the deceptively dainty fingers digging into your shoulder hard enough to make you wince in pain.

“You’ll be a good wife for him, won’t you?” Kikyo asked, her voice taking on a sharper edge. It hurt, but you were more frightened of her than of the feeling.

“I-I will,” you agreed quickly, looking with panicked eyes to the reflection of her visor’s red eye. She relaxed after a second, smoothing out the fabric she scrunched serenely.

“That’s nice to hear. I’m very happy for the both of you,”  Kikyo told you, her voice gentle once more.

Your eyes trailed back to yourself in the mirror once again, looking at the stranger girl and the odd figure that was Kikyo standing behind you.

A good wife. Maybe that’s who this stranger was. Not a good friend or loving daughter, but a good wife. And, maybe, it was better that you saw someone else in the mirror, it was a distinction from your own self, your old self. From now on, as per your own choices, you were going to be a Zoldyck.   
  
  


* * *

 

 

At the Altar of the private wedding ceremony conducted by Silva and witnessed by Zeno, something like unreality set in as a salve to the tightly wound anxiety and wrung out echo of grief in your heart. There was an excitement, or some variety of emotion like it, swirling within the darker feelings -of course there was, it was your wedding, after all- but it was nothing like the dreamy fantasy of flowery words and the making of a loving union between you and Illumi.

Performed in a secluded and dim room,  a small circle of light the only illumination for the four of you, the vows that swore you into the Zoldyck family took on the tone more suited to a complex cultic ritual than a wedding. The word love was not mentioned once.

It struck you part of the way through that, if it was a ritual, then you were the virgin sacrifice, accepted into the family by name; bound to the family by blood.

Married, till death did you part, to Illumi Zoldyck.

 

* * *

 

 

The wound given to you for the sake of the ceremony wasn’t deep, it would heal quickly without any scar. After the wedding was over, you’d wrapped a bandage around your palm, but the scent of your own blood still lingered. The metallic flavor clung to your tongue.

Blood had made you a wife, the droplets of dark crimson acting as the binding seal in your union.

Nerves twisted your stomach as you looked in the bathroom mirror of your honeymoon suite, dressed in a white dressing gown that was fancy enough to be seen as something other than pajamas but too demure to be anything sexy. White, more white. White, for the last time it would be appropriate on you.

Blood would make you a woman, staining your purity red once you and Illumi performed the final ritual of marriage.

If you began thinking too hard about that now, truly thought about why you were wearing something that was only a single silky tie away from nudity or what was meant to happen once you left the bathroom, you’d break down. To think, now, was to give in to the emotions. If you did that, they would become inescapable. You would fall to the bathroom tile and drown yourself in them.

The longer you stayed in here, postponing the inevitable, the worse it would get. So, feeling entirely too underprepared, you left the bathroom, shutting off the light with a trembling and clammy hand. You told yourself that these nerves, this discomfort, was anticipation. That you would be fine, this would all be fine. You trusted Illumi, you trusted your husband.

Besides, you had left yourself without any other options.

That thought struck you with icy cold dread, a feeling that made you dizzy enough to fall against the doorway of the dark bedroom, drawing in an unsteady breath.

You didn’t want this.

No, you did, of course you did.

It wasn’t hard to find your new husband in the dark room, Illumi was already mostly undressed, hanging up his clothes neatly with his back turned to you. In the dim light, his pale skin seemed nearly translucent, the glossy black of his hair shining strikingly against it.

Illumi was, unquestionably, a very beautiful man. Instead of consoling you, the reminder only made you feel more skittish.

“There you are,” he said to break the silence, turning his head to pin you with his dark stare.

He hadn’t given any indication that he’d heard you enter, but that didn’t surprise you as much as the way your heartbeat painfully spiked at the sensation of his eyes on you. You instantly regretted what you were; or, rather; weren’t wearing, every fiber of your being wish you’d picked something more covering.

“Are you ready?” Illumi asked, straightforward. Always so blunt. You swallowed hard.

“Ready for what?” you responded quietly, feigning innocence and averting your eyes from the image of his perfectly pale and bare skin, avoiding his gaze because you knew he wouldn’t.

“To consummate our marriage,” Illumi answered, giving the most obvious and uncomfortably technical answer to your stupid question without shame or hesitation. For some reason it threw you off, although you weren’t sure what else you expected.

Maybe you could have laughed at his choice of working, but instead you swallowed down a fresh wave of apprehension.

“That’s…um…” your hesitant reply trailed off awkwardly, the answer impossible to find in the mess of thoughts swirling in your mind.

Were you ready?

You didn’t know. The taste of blood on the back of your tongue was too distracting. Dizziness washed over you again, the steady pounding of your heart threatening to send you toppling.

“Come here,” Illumi told you after a beat of silence, a demand hidden behind a casual tone. You winced, shifting your weight and peeking up at him through your lashes. You couldn’t, you couldn’t, you couldn’t-

“Illumi,” you finally said, your shaking arms wrapped around your waist like a hug, “I-I can’t.” And that was honest, wasn’t it? You couldn’t make your feet move, or your thoughts focused.

Were you ready? You didn’t know because today had been too much, too unspeakably emotional and exhausting. A horrible feeling like claustrophobia was making you feel sick, you felt sick and trapped, like you could barely breathe.

“Are you scared?” Illumi asked reasonably, a cool juxtaposition to your rising panic.

You shook your head quickly, although it wasn’t in denial of the question, which was undoubtedly correct.

“I don’t…”  _know_  -you didn’t know!- but you couldn’t say that, you couldn’t give Illumi that non-answer though the thick swell of tears in your throat, not as his bride on the first night of your marriage.

Having squeezed your eyes shut in an attempt to regain control and actually try and vocalize what you felt, you didn’t hear Illumi move, you didn’t feel how close he’d gotten until his cold hand was pulling up your chin. The sudden contact made you jump, your eyes shooting open and heart beating furiously in panic. He was too close, too exposed, too intense.

One half of your mind was soothed by his touch, but the other recoiled in fear.

“You are scared,” Illumi asserted lightly, his impossibly dark eyes mesmerizing you as much as they petrified you. Their distracting allure made it shocking when he suddenly grabbed you, lifting you up like you were nothing and taking you to the bed.

“Illumi, wait, please,” you begged with a wobbly edge of panic, trying to squirm out of his grip. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh?” he asked casually, easily depositing you among the pillows with an ‘umph’ before you scrambled to sit up and adjust your dressing gown, “Then tell me,” Illumi said with an empty sort of nonchalance, splaying his hand towards you.

You looked up at him, your emotions and thoughts and hundreds of words swelling to the surface and bubbling to your lips, before dying and dissipating into the prolonged silence. Given this opportunity, holding the singular attention of his dark eyes, you had nothing to offer.

Were you ready?

No.

Illumi hummed knowingly when you didn’t reply, sitting on the bed next to you.

“There’s no reason to be scared,” he told you evenly, “I won’t hurt you.”

A rush of guilt layered over all of the other conflicting and clashing emotions, confusing you further. He was trying to console you with those words, in his own way, and you wanted to please Illumi, to please him as his wife, but you couldn’t do this. Not now, not like this, not after everything that had happened today.

“I know you won’t,” you said, meeting his gaze pleadingly, willing him to understand, “But I… can’t.”

Illumi considered your words without expression, drawing out another uncomfortably charged silence with his eyes burning into yours.

“Now that we’re married,” he finally said, “You have no right to deny me.”

Despair hit you, filled your eyes with tears. Despair, because he was right. Illumi was your husband, the man you had chosen to marry, and so when he pulled you against him, pressing his lips to yours, you had no choice but to allow it.

You made a sound, something between a squeak and a protesting hum, but that was all the fight you could offer. Your shaking hands couldn’t push him away -or maybe they didn’t want to, despite the alarm bells in your mind- but neither could they settle against his bare skin. The compromise was twisting in the sheets, pulling at the soft fabric with trembling fists. Whatever else you felt, whatever heartbreak you had faced today,  you unequivocally loved Illumi. You couldn’t, nor were you allowed to, truly deny him.

But this kiss, loaded with the significance of what was meant to be lust and an unbreakable promise, was nothing like the treasured kisses you’d shared before. It was nothing like the kiss you shared the first time you admitted your love for him -the word love hadn’t even been in your wedding vows!- and of course you loved him still, loved him truly, but you weren’t ready.

You didn’t want this, not now, not tonight, not when the heartbroken faces of your family were fresh in your mind and you could taste the blood from the slice on your palm, when you were terrified of the idea of his hands touching you and suffocating on the choked feeling of discomfort. Not when your mind was overburdened with these awful thoughts and burning you into a fever heat, when you were choking on your sickening uncertainty.

“You’re distracted,” Illumi accused unhappily, pulling away from the kiss and leaving you to try and catch your breath in shallow gasps.

“I’m… sorry,” you whispered, the apology going far deeper than just the distraction. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. You were failing him as his wife, failing and falling and utterly out of your depth.

Illumi’s cold finger brushed your cheek, catching a tear you hadn’t realized you’d been crying. He studied it for a moment, then turned his eyes back to you.

“It will be easier if you submit to me,” Illumi told you in a light voice, the even tone contrasting with the relative violence when he pushed you down into the pillows, making you cry out in a breathless squeak. Illumi ignored that, continuing casually while pulling apart the knot of the silky sash on your dressing gown. “Now, and in all things, I expect you to obey me.”

Your breathing was harsh and shallow, hands shaking as you gripped the two sides of your dressing gown to keep it closed.

“Illumi, please stop,” you begged, truly begging. You weren’t ready, you didn’t want this, you couldn’t do it.

“No,” he said, forcibly pushing away your hands and exposing your bare chest and stomach. Seeing his unreadable expression, feeling the weight of his dark eyes on your skin, was too much to handle. You closed your eyes to it, fighting down the sob in your throat.

Endure it, endure it,  _endure-_

Illumi’s hands were cold as he ran them over your stomach, to your breasts. You stayed still, barely daring to breath. Until he took your nipple between two fingers, pinching the sensitive skin. The electric jolt of stimulation made your eyes open, your entire body going stiff while he watched with empty eyes. Illumi hummed, leaning down over you closing his lips around your other nipple, pulling strange whimpery sounds from your mouth by moving his tongue over the tender skin.

When he began to suck lightly, you made a high pitched sound in the back of your throat, your back arching into the feeling and the heat it flushed you with. Even still, you were tense with discomfort, your mind frantic as it was further torn between this new pleasure and the the deafening warning bells that told you of how wrong this was.

You didn’t like it, you wanted space, you wanted away from him.

“Illumi,  _stop_ ,” you begged, your voice cracking on the second word. Rather than pulling away, you felt the sharp edge of his teeth against the sensitive skin, followed by a burst of pain that was quickly smoothed over by his tongue. It made you cry out, but it wasn’t enough of a distraction from the cool hand crawling up your thigh, which was undeterred by the way you had them pressed together.

Knowing what he wanted, what he was trying to do, was the trigger to fully push you into a desperate panic fueled by a sort of disgust for what was happening. You struggled against him, pushing his mouth from your chest and frantically trying to adjust your robe to cover your bare skin. There were tears in your eyes, your breathing wildly uneven and whole body shaking.

Illumi blinked down at you, his surprise fading fast into a thoughtful look.

“You’re still resisting?” he asked.

You had no answer -your fault was too obvious to deny- staring up at him with shocked wide eyes and a feeling of sickened guilt gnawing at you for pushing him away, and for allowing him that close in the first place. Illumi took your silence as agreement, his face falling slightly.

“Hm… That’s a problem. It will be inconvenient if you struggle and hurt yourself during our first time…”

The mention of your ‘first time’ made everything worse, highlighted the way his mouth had left your nipple wet and stiff, the ghostly touch of his cold fingers on your thigh. A terrible marrow deep sickness squeezing your insides only intensified with the phantom sensations, the oppressive discomfort that was choking you up.

“I didn’t want to do this, but it will suffice for tonight,” Illumi said with a sigh, leaning over to grab something you couldn’t see, “In the future, I’ll expect you to do what I say without complaint. You will learn your place as my wife.”

His wife.

_You’ll be a good wife for him, won’t you?_

_I-I will!_

“What are you talking about, Illumi?” you asked, hushed and frightened. The question wasn’t what you wanted to say, but those were the most pressing words, the easiest to string together.

“Hold still,” Illumi told you, his hand raising as he leaned towards you. The slight yet familiar shine made it clear. A needle.

For a second, you were confused, unable to make the connection between his words and the needle. Then, he filled it with his Aura, and it clicked.

“Illumi, no,” you gasped, horrified in a completely new way. Illumi took your fear with an impassive expression. When you attempted to get away, scooting backwards on the bed, he only caged you in, the void swirl of his black eyes capturing you as surely as his arms.

“You know you can’t escape me,” he told you, no cruelty or malice in his voice, it was fact. His word was your law.

“Please, Illumi, no,” you begged, tears spilling over your eyes and down your cheeks. He didn’t stop, holding you down with ease and a bottomless black stare. Despite your protesting, there was nothing you could do when you felt the stinging bite of the needle indenting your skin.

Fear froze you solid beneath him, terror keeping you stock still as you felt the needle smoothly pierced into your neck, driven in with an awful sharp ache, driven into you in one smooth movement. You could feel Illumi’s Aura filling you, hitting your system almost like a sort of thick fog.

“I own you now,” Illumi said, the low words curled with his own type of affection, maybe even joy, “You’re mine.”


	72. Pariston Hill Prompt: “I know it hurts, honey, but that’s what happens when you don’t do what I say.”

“Shouldn’t you know by now how how bad it is for you to be sneaking around in places you don’t belong?” Pariston asked you with a teasing innocence, smiling at you in a way that didn’t convey any of the anger you knew he must feel.  

He wasn’t touching you, he hadn’t touched almost all since he’d taken you, but there was something frightening about the way he had you cornered flat against the wall, his arm braced above you. Getting caught in his office with the intentions of finding information that might help you leverage your freedom was bad. Very, very bad.

And he didn’t seem to care. 

“Not only is it impolite, but you always run the risk of finding things you wish you hadn’t. I wouldn’t want you to see anything that would upset you unnecessarily,” Pariston continued in matter-of-fact tone. After letting those ominous words settle for a moment, he laughed them off airily. “Not that I have anything to hide! If you’re curious about anything, or have any questions or concerns you’d like to bring up, I encourage you to ask me!”

Pariston’s voice tempted you into believing his friendly facade, to buy into his bright smile and charming persona. It was just like it had been that awful night when you first met him; the honesty in the way he spoke made it so easy to doubt yourself, to discount all of your logical thoughts and believe.

But, that night you had seen him kill somebody. 

You cleared your throat, trying to steady yourself enough to respond without stuttering.

“I don’t… Have any. Thank you,” you said, unable to meet Pariston’s eyes. You could feel your heartbeat in your throat, your hands shaking as you hoped against hope that he would leave it at that.

“No?” Pariston asked, confused, “Then… Might I ask what you were looking for? I doubt there’s anything in here that would be of interest to you, but, if there is, I’m sure I can help you find it.”

His offer, given so eagerly and helpfully, only made you second guess yourself further. Maybe there really was nothing of note in Pariston’s home study, why else would he allow it to be so easily broken into by someone as unskilled as yourself?

“There’s… Nothing. I was just… Curious,” you muttered, still staring at the polished hardwood of his office floor.

Then, your breath caught. Something in the air changed after your lie, a strange charge zipping up your spine. You needed to leave.

“My, my, what would your father say about you lying?” Pariston asked in a teasing voice, lowered to suit the sudden shift in mood.

You inhaled sharply, an awful feeling of sickness and disquiet twisting your stomach. You had mostly tried to avoid thinking of your father. Each time you did, the awful hollow ache that followed only seemed to grow worse.

“Don’t… Don’t talk about him,” you said, turning your face further downwards to hide your expression, blinking fast to remove the threat of stinging tears.

“He was a harsh disciplinarian, wasn’t he?” Pariston asked innocently, “Am I being too gentle and allowing you to misbehave, should I be more strict?”

“Stop,” you said, your voice quiet to hide the wobble of tears, sharp with an anger you could no long fully say was for Pariston. “Don’t talk about him.”

“Oh? Do you still miss him? Even though he gave you away to me?” Pariston asked curiously.

The arm he didn’t have braced against the wall raised, his hand grasping your chin to lift your face up. You grabbed Pariston’s wrist to free yourself, but you you weren’t strong enough, managing to do nothing but hold on while his eerily empty brown eyes studied your face with a little pout pursing his lips.

“You know, I might get jealous if you’re thinking of another man,” Pariston told you lowly, the words sounding an uncomfortable lot like a threat. It froze you solid.

“He’s my father,” you objected, eyes wide with distress and a seed of disgust planted deep in your stomach. You pulled harder at his wrist, but he didn’t even seem to notice.  

Pariston smiled.

“Yes, and you  _were_  his Bambi,” he said with a happy change of tone, his fingers dragging down to wrap around your neck instead. You pulled even more insistently on his wrist, aided by fear, but Pariston didn’t react, continuing with a chiding voice, “But now you’re mine, and… Well, I do take much better care of you than he ever did, don’t you think?”

“You can’t… Can’t compare yourself to my… my father,” you choked out, that seed of disgust fully blooming at the implications of what he was saying. You wanted to get away from him, to pull his hand from your neck and escape somewhere that wasn’t filled with the scent of his cologne and hot with the spotlight of his frightening eyes.

“Eh? But I feed you and give you a place to live, I bought you clothes and things you like,” Pariston said, his eyes round in simple curiosity. A smile smile turned his lips upwards, his voice lowering slightly, “Isn’t it a father’s job to provide those things?”

 _A father’s job?_  Nausea rolled through you, an overbearing and trembling feeling of sickness and twisting repugnance to what Pariston was saying.

“That’s… You’re wrong,” you told him unsteadily.

“Am I?” Pariston asked, his smile widening at your growing discomfort, “I only meant to point out that I’m much more qualified than he is. Even in discipline. He was harsh, but you still disobeyed in the end.”

You blinked at Pariston, knowing your eyes were filmy with tears you couldn’t suppress but unable to turn away with his hand still braced on your neck the way it was. Fear thrummed through your veins in a mixed rush with anxiety, twisting around the awful dark pit of disgust his words brought to you.

“You look very scared,” Pariston noted with muted excitement, “But you don’t have to worry,” he added sweetly, releasing your neck, “Since it’s your first time breaking the rules, I’ll forgive you. As long as you apologize, that is.”

Breathing in deeply, your own hands on your neck as if to protect it, you tried to figure out how serious he was being. Would he really let you off so easily? Pariston’s expression gave nothing away, his smile as perfect of a poker face as any impassive mask.

“I’m.. I’m sorry,” you told him for a lack of any other choices, the words filled with your desperate desire for this to be over.

Pariston frowned, that oddly cute pout returning to his face.

“Hmm, that’s no good,” he mused, making your heart skip. After a second, his expression brightened, the hand that had been on your neck raising with the pointer finger up, “Try saying it like this,” he instructed, “‘‘I’m sorry for being misbehaving and breaking into your office. Please daddy, forgive me’.”

The confident casualness of his voice forced an extra moment of confusion before the words really processed, and then you  _choked_. Pariston called you repressed, but even you knew enough to understand the general meaning of what he’d just said. You stared at him in open mouthed shock, waiting for him to laugh or say something else or do  _anything_  because there was no way he was serious.

“That’s…” you finally said when he only continued to watch you expectantly, “Are you joking?”

“Why would I be joking?” Pariston asked innocently, “An apology is better than punishment, isn’t it?”

“Not… Not the apology,” you said, watching the delight in his eyes dance at your reaction. He knew what he was doing, even if he acted naive to the fact. “I… I won’t call you  _that_. It’s horrible,” you finished, choking on your revulsion at the thought.

“Well, I wasn’t sure before,” Pariston said, the smile he wore becoming what you could only called predatory as he crowded in even closer, “But that’s the only way you’ll be able to respect me, isn’t it? The way you act… You’ve always been daddy’s girl,  _his Bambi_ … Haven’t you?”

“Stop!” you demanded in disgust, your voice heavy with weak panic as you finally dared to lash out, pushing your shaking hands against his chest in a desperate attempt to create space. Pariston didn’t move, giving you only a second to regret what you’d done before pushing himself against you completely, leaving you without any room to struggle. “Stop!” you cried again, a whiny and breathless plea of fear.

“I warned you that I’d have to punish you if you couldn’t apologize,” Pariston said regretfully, kicking your feet apart forcefully and pushing his hand up your skirt and between your thighs before you could close them.

“Not this.. No-” your terrified words cut off with a stifled yelp when you felt the slight brush of his fingers against you through the barrier of your underwear.

“Of course… You might find that you like this type of punishment,” he told you in a honeyed tone, pushing down your underwear. When you tried to fight him off, Pariston grabbed your hand, slamming your arm to the wall and squeezing the fine bones painfully, only letting off when you stopped fighting with another pathetic cry. “If you do what I say, I’m sure you’ll like it very much.”

“Nn-oh,” you got out between your gasping breaths, the word split up and heavy with a dozen different emotions, with the denial that you’d ever enjoy this form of ‘punishment’. 

You squeezed your eyes shut, clamping your teeth down on your bottom lip as you tried to block it all out out. Not that you could ignore the heat of his body pressed against yours, the way he smelled and how it cast a dizzy haze in your brain, or, the worst of it all, his fingers between your legs. From deep inside your throat, a whine built up, a sound that acknowledged the nightmarish shutter that took your body at the first electric touch of his fingers against your clit.

“You won’t apologize?” Pariston asked, his lips brushing your ear and voice candy sweet while his soft fingers began rubbing against you in earnest. The humiliation of being touched was too much to bear, the tentative sparks of pleasure burning shame.

“Stop,” you demanded again, another breathless rejection as useless as your struggling against him. Pariston let out a disappointed sigh, his fingers moving with more focus against your clit. The harshness hurt, but your body still took gratification from the feeling. You had to bite back a sob of confused pained pleasure, hating yourself for the choked sound.

“My, my, I see why your father had to be so strict with you,” Pariston said, in complete control of himself and his silky tone despite the way you felt like you were unraveling.

“Don’t,” you gasped, a bitterly painful edge of miserable anger lending some strength to the word. When your eyes opened with that emotion, Pariston caught them in his, allowing you to see his glee as his fingers stopped in touching you, sliding down.

“My guess is that he was strict because he didn’t want you to be a slut who went with any boy who would have you,” Pariston said with a casual, nearly conversational, tone, pushing a finger into you with a sudden and punishing bluntness.

You cried out at the splitting pain of the forced intrusion, a keening sound pulled from your lips. It hurt more than you could have thought, your body giving out and falling against his.

“And that he wanted you to get good grades because he didn’t want you to be an uneducated whore,” Pariston continued warmly, his voice holding no cruelty despite the words and the violence of what he was doing. Your trembling free hand clutched at his shoulders for stability as he pulled his finger back out, only to be thrust back in with the same pinching ache, another sobbing cry articulating your hurt.

“Now you’re on your way to being both of those things, all because you disobeyed him and went out walking at night. You should feel lucky that I want to give you a second chance, shouldn’t you?” Pariston asked with what sounded like genuine concern, which you could almost believe if he wasn’t finger fucking you dry.

“It hurts,” you told him in a teary voice, your eyes squeezed shut because you didn’t want to see what expression he was watching you with, didn’t want to see those stony dark eyes, “Please, please stop..”

“You think this hurts?” Pariston asked lightly, pushing his finger all the way in. The way you whined in a drawn out cry seemed to answer his question, because he hummed thoughtfully. “Imagine if I used two fingers, or pushed you up the wall and fucked you, just like this.”

“No,” you gasped out in fear, your voice breaking and tear blurred eyes opening to meet his. Dark, of course they were dark. Of course he was smiling, no longer caring to pretend to have any sort of humanity for you. “It hurts, it really..” your voice cracked, cutting you off.

“I know it hurts, Bambi, but that’s what happens when you don’t do what I say,” Pariston told you sweetly, his voice curling around your nickname in a way that made you shiver as he slowly pulled his finger out of you. “But… I don’t  _want_  to hurt you. It’s my responsibility to look after you and take care of you, after all.” He smiled, a winning grin on his boyishly attractive features. “If you ask nicely, I’ll forgive you.”

“Nicely..” you repeated quietly. 

You knew what he meant, of course you did. He was only doing this to make you bend to his will, wasn’t he? You sniffed, trying to breath evenly so as to not let out another dry sob. Pariston didn’t make it easy for you, his eyes focused entirely on your face and fingers still suggestively placed on the very top of your thigh.

“Please d-” the word caught in your mouth. You swallowed down your disgust, feeling the shame swirl in your chest. But you were more afraid than you were disgusted. “Please, daddy.. Please forgive me for going in… Into your office…” you finally managed, your voice hushed. Although you’d looked away so as to mitigate your humiliation, you could see Pariston’s bright smile, feel his enjoyment of your distress.

“What was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” he said playfully, the pleasure as obvious in his tone as it was in that smile. You closed your eyes, pushing down a sound of helpless despair, but it was too late to back out now.

“Daddy  _please_  forgive me, I’m really… Really sorry,” you said, forcing yourself to meet Pariston’s delighted eyes, to keep your voice loud enough that he couldn’t possibly pretend to not have heard you. The embarrassment was making you nauseous, burning your cheeks and ears like fire.

“I knew it,” Pariston said triumphantly after a drawn out moment of tension, pulling his hand from between your legs, “You really  _are_  a daddy’s girl,” he cooed affectionately. You nearly fell when he released your other hand from being pinned to the wall, flinching back when he grasped your face in his hands, squishing your cheeks like you were a child. “It’s very, very cute. Even if you pretend to be brave and stubborn, you’ll do what I tell you to, won’t you?”

Pariston wanted a response, you could see that in his sparkling eyes.

“Yes…” His fingers dug into your skin painfully at the answer, his nails pressing into your scalp without any change in his expression. “Yes… daddy,” you said, wincing at both the pain and the disgust of being so easily coerced to do as Pariston said.

“Good girl,” he said happily, releasing you, uncaring of the way the unbalance made you stumble, tripping with your underwear around your ankles. “Oh, please close the door when you’re done in my office,” Pariston said, pausing in the doorway. When you looked up, he smiled playfully, “Let me know if you find anything interesting.”


	73. Killua Zoldyck Prompt: Wow, you’ll listen to him but not to me?

“You’re doing it wrong, you’ll never make your target like that,” Killua called to you teasingly from the table.

You cast him a side glance, sitting casually his with his drink in hand amidst the buzzing patrons of the bar, his gaze fixed on you with a smile. As usual, you had no luck in figuring out what emotion swirled in his lovely eyes. Was his expression playful? Flirtatious? Killua’s voice was more mocking than anything, but you’d quickly realized that sort of behavior was the norm for him.

At least towards you. Did that make you special? Or-

“Should I show you? It’s barely any fun to play when there’s no competition,” Killua continued, breaking your thoughts. You frowned, eyes narrowing at his cocky smile.

“No way I need your charity,” you responded boldly, playing back into his taunting and shoving all of your uncertain feelings aside, “Just you wait, Killua, I’m gonna become the dart master, and then you’re gonna wish you were nicer.”

Killua laughed, which, despite how it ruffled your pride, was entirely deserved. Dart throwing was, apparently, not your forte, and his perfect track record made the whole sport an exercise in insanity.

“At least let me fix your stance, this is painful to watch,” Killua said, moving to stand up. A strange sort of embarrassment rushed through you, having little to do with your obvious lack of skill and everything to do with the undetermined energy you felt buzzing between the two of you whenever he was close.

“I’m fine,” you said with perhaps a little too much awkward zeal. At the slight narrowing of his eyes, you quickly added, “How can I possibly take advice from the enemy?”

Killua frowned, but leaned back against the table, folding his arms behind his head with his face screwed up into an expression that screamed ‘you’re an idiot’. You’d have snorted in amusement at the childishness of the action, if it didn’t draw so much attention to his arms. As it was, you quickly looked away, focusing entirely on adjusting your grip on the dart and sizing up the target and most certainly not on his sculpted muscles.

Deep breath in. 

_You’d known each other for several weeks now, ever since you’d taken on this contract with him and a few other Hunters._  

Out. 

_Did he feel like there was chemistry between the two of you? Or was it all just in your head?_

Throw.

_Sometimes the tension felt like it was going to eat you alive._

Killua laughed. You were getting worse, if that was possible.

“C’mon-”

“If you want to hit the target, you need to stand like this,” a voice to your side interrupted before Killua could hurl whatever insult he undoubtedly intended your way.

You turned, startled, to see a man you didn’t know, posing to show you how to stand.

“Go on, hon, try it. I bet you’ll make your mark next time,” he continued, smiling at you with the confidence only a man smelling of beer and cigarettes in a slightly sleazy bar could really have.

Caught off guard and unsure of what else to do, overwhelmingly aware of the eyes on your back, you mimicked his posture with your last dart in hand, sliding your foot back more and angling your hips a bit more.

“Than-”

“Now focus only on where you wanna hit on the target,” the guy said, interrupting once again, “Keep your arm up.” You did what he said, hoping it’d make him leave. “And.. Throw,” he finished, guiding you until the dart stuck. Not exactly where you wanted, but a bit better than you’d previously done.

“Good job, sweetheart,” the stranger said, turning his decidedly slimy smile back to you, “I’m-”

“My turn,” Killua cut in brightly and loudly, coming up behind you and stopping the stranger in his tracks. You couldn’t help a sigh of relief, the awful itch of discomfort gone as soon as the guy laid eyes on Killua. Maybe it was mean, but you didn’t mind his look of panic, nor the fact that he chose to walk away without any further comment after looking back and forth from you to Killua a few times.

“That was-” you began, trying to make a joke of the awkward situation, but Killua stopped you with a grin.

“Wow,” he drew out with his patented heavily emphasized playful sarcasm, making you smile back, all awkwardness dissipating into butterflies, “You’ll listen to him but not to me?”

_I’d probably listen to anything you said,_  you thought with a strange amount of wistful conviction, the thought striking you particularly hard.

“Maybe if you were nicer to me I would,” you replied instead, swallowing that thought down and crossing your arms. Killua rolled his eyes, but his smile didn’t falter.

“If you weren’t so terrible at this game, maybe I would be.” 


	74. Chrollo Prompt: You know you can’t escape me. I own you now. You’re mine.

You finally understood that he was, no matter what you wanted, your reality constant. Your unquestionable inevitability. 

To deny that any longer was to play the fool and blind yourself to the obvious proof, to the evidence that was made clear with every rush of the burning desire and caustic hate you felt, those vibrant emotions tagged neatly with the mere thought of him. 

He was carved into your skin as surely as the violent marks of his fascination, sunk so deep into your mind that even if you found freedom, you were certain he’d remain.  

Chrollo slammed you against the wall hard enough to take you breath away and make the whole room shutter, but you didn’t care. It was suited to this vicious kiss that was all tongue and teeth, one that forced him to give up his absolute dominance in favor of something wild. An expression of an emotion you had thought yourself above entertaining. It was rage. It was arousal. It was a match for the twisted parody of what you might call love.

There was no longer a question of whether you wanted Chrollo or not -not that the answer to had ever been of any particular importance- because you could only fight fate for so long, and it was so much easier to give in to this anger fueled moment of lustful drunkenness without stopping to ponder useless things. He was inescapable, and you couldn’t run any longer.

Your hands rose up to tangle in the silky soft strands of Chrollo’s hair, running your nails across his scalp while his dove beneath your clothes, touching and exposing and burning the flesh beneath. It didn’t matter that he was undoing and pulling away your clothes, you didn’t care anymore, that’s where this was heading anyway. Where it would always end with him.

With your shorts at your feet and your shirt unbuttoned, his warm hands switched from hungry to hurtful. Chrollo’s fingers dug painfully into your hips, his mouth stifling the sound of pain you unconsciously made. 

The pleased and muted chuckle your reaction got from him prompted you to take fistfuls of his hair and pull in retaliation, breaking the kiss when his head was yanked back and drawing a satisfyingly sexy groan out of his sound of amusement.

Blood was a heavy taste on your tongue while you paused to catch your breath. The lovely crimson color was smeared across Chrollo’s full bottom lip, a striking contrast to his pale skin. Even in the dim light and slightly mussed up, he was beautiful. 

His dark eyes turned down to meet yours, an irritating half smile twisting his lips. It was as if he was waiting to take your cue. As if, even like this, he was the one in control.

Looking away from his eyes in annoyance and releasing Chrollo’s hair, you took advantage of the perfectly pale column of his neck being exposed, pressing your bruised and bloodied lips against his pulse. It wasn’t fluttering the way yours was, he was in far too good of shape for something as human as that, but it was still there. He was, on some level, entirely breakable.

“Someone’s feeling spirited tonight,” Chrollo remarked lightly, his voice vibrating against your lips, “Is there any particular reason why?”

“I hate you,” you replied without thinking against his skin in a breathlessly heavy voice, moving your lips down his neck, intending to mark him the way he’d marked you so many times. The words meant nothing, you weren’t even sure if they were the truth, but saying them felt good.

Before you could even properly start drawing a bruise onto his perfect skin, Chrollo’s hands were off your hips, one of them pushing your head with a hard knock against the wall and wrapping around your throat while the other dropped to fit between your legs.

The sudden feeling of his fingers against your underwear -wet, of course you were wet, that was how this always went, wasn’t it?- along with the surprise of his hand pushing you so carelessly against the wall pulled an aggressive sort of moan from you, the harsh pain and pleasure filling you with an even mix of displeasure that you’d been stopped and the hot tendrils of anticipation.

“Is this your hate?” Chrollo asked with a lightly cruel humor as he brought your attention to your arousal. There was a cocky half-smile on his bloodied lips to match the tone. It lent an unnerving youthfulness to his round eyes eyes, which flickered in the almost-yellow of the room’s light, the shadows of his face made sharp by the harsh shadows it cast.    
  
You made a low sound, almost a growl, of anger and of need, your hands going to his arm to push it away from your neck. Instead of releasing you, Chrollo’s fingers tightened.

“Right now I can see the animosity in your eyes,” he told you lowly, “Still, that expression betrays your desire,” his smile dropped slightly, his voice turning soft, “Seeing you like this makes me wonder… Is it me you hate-” 

Chrollo came closer, his face only a few intimate inches from yours, his eyes becoming too dark to really see. Adding to the electric tension between you, his fingers very deliberately continued to touch you through the thin fabric of your underwear, his fingers choking back your whimper and preserving the charged silence. 

“-Or yourself?”  
  
Those words settled, your need to get a full breath increasing and his fingers driving your breathless brain wild in the way they ceaselessly rubbed against you.

“Doesn’t… Matter…” you got out, your voice small and not holding even half of the fire you wanted to express with them.

Chrollo blinked in something like surprise to your response. It made all the strange tension ease. His fingers loosened around your neck, both of his hands leaving you and bracing on either side of the wall. 

The rush of  intoxicating oxygen hit your system with a familiar wonderfully awful tingling feeling. Dizzy with the feeling and free from his touch, you felt compelled to continue. To justify yourself to him and hope to regain some dignity.

“No matter what I feel, the result will be the same, right?” you asked, the strange mixture of breathless desire, muted rage, and bitter defeat ringing in your ears, “That’s the truth.”

Chrollo’s expression didn’t change, his arms caging you in as he studied you. Not that you could have moved anyway. Your heartbeat raced, your body pulsing with a not-so-forgotten desire, but you at least could meet his eyes.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Chrollo finally asked with something like amazement, “That’s why you’ve been acting differently tonight… You know you can’t escape me,” his face dropped to meet your eyes straight on, swiping the blood from his lower lip in a way that made your stomach flutter before speaking, “I own you now. You’re mine.”


	75. Kurapika + Blowjob

It wasn’t, no matter how you looked at it, a relationship. You weren’t an idiot who blinded themselves to the truth. But, no matter how hard it was, you understood and accepted Kurapika as he was. As the person you loved. He simply wasn’t the type to declare his love or kiss your lips, he would never see your adoration as it was or reciprocate it the way your heart yearned for. In most cases he seemed barely aware of your presence.

But, even when you were ignored and dismissed, even when Kurapika disregarded and cast you aside without a second thought, even then, even still,  _no matter what_ , you loved him truly.

Your foolish heart ached for your love, broke against the unknowing cruelty of his obliviousness, but you endured it gladly. There was never a second thought in your mind, no matter how painful it became, because even though Kurapika would never return your love, he still needed you in some small way. He still had shared with you a piece of himself that only belonged to you.

In the darkest hours of the night when Kurapika was consumed by his endlessly tumultuous twisting of thoughts, when he was awake with nothing but ghosts to keep him company, when insomnia was an invited illness for fear the nightmares he’d endure in sleep, he opened his door for you.

There was no kissing, no romance or satisfaction of his touch on your skin. The love that burned within you was devotion to a broken angel, and the ritual that took place in these dark hours was your revering rite. Kurapika’s exhausted and overworked body, so beautifully fragile despite the dangerous strength you knew he possessed, was the place you paid worship.

In the dreamy blue-dark of Kurapika’s room -he always left the lights off-, his body sprawled and mostly undressed beneath yours in the twisted white sheets, you were nothing but the desperate devout. Kurapika was your spiraling, falling, wingless angel. Your adored. Yes, in these moments, however fleeting and painful, he was yours.

“You don’t… Don’t have to do this,” Kurapika told you as you kissed your way down his  neck, as close as you dared to the tempting surface of his slightly chapped lips. The words, already a bit breathless, made you smile, heart swelling in adoration as you paused.

“Would you like me to stop?” you asked, sitting up on your elbow to look at him. Even with Kurapika’s pale skin dyed with a slight blue tinge, his face hollow with a lack of sleep and eyes slightly glassy, you were certain you’d never seen another sight so beautiful. An angel. Your angel.

Sometimes your love felt as if it were too much, as if your chest would burst and overflow with the liquid and raw affectionate feeling, bleeding you out until you were nothing but dust.

“Not… Necessarily,” Kurapika replied, his voice made heavy with what you assumed to be the heady mixture of budding lust and exhaustion.

“But you’ll tell me, won’t you?” you asked, forcing yourself to hold still no matter how badly you wanted him. Kurapika seemed a bit surprised, or perhaps he was just that tired.

“Yes,” he responded, eyes wide.

You smiled, a giddy feeling rising to your brain at his agreement, leaning back down to explore as much of his skin as possible, mapping it in your mind just as desperately as you had the first time. To forget this gift, this joy, was a thought you couldn’t bear. To one day no longer be able to recall Kurapika’s scent, a warm and comforting smell with a snap of sweet mint, or to hold the memory of his soft skin beneath your lips and fingers, was unthinkable.

You loved him, you really honestly did.

“I don’t… understand why you do this,” Kurapika said, pausing with a beautifully sharp intake of breath when your mouth finally had made its way down to his nipple, circling the sensitive skin with your tongue, “Certainly there’s… There’s nothing for you to gain from this. So why-” Kurapika cut off with another gasp when you moved to pay the same attention to the other side, an accidentally sexy sound of surprise.

Was he speaking out of protest? Guilt? Either way, the words were a sweet contradiction to the way he buried his fingers in your hair, pulling in a way you doubt he meant to be so harsh. It burned your scalp, but the pain, too, was wonderful, when it came from his hands.

“What do you get from this?” Kurapika finally asked. Despite the relative focus of the question, his voice was obviously affected. Speaking was becoming nothing more than sounds, something to say for him to retain at least some control over the situation.

Almost as if to prove that to yourself, you reached down to feel him through his underwear. Kurapika rewarded you with a physical shutter and soft groan. A hot shiver went down your spine at the knowledge that you were turning him on, although at this point it shouldn’t have been as delightedly surprising. Still, you doubted it would ever be any less special, no matter how many times you did this.

“There has to be something, otherwise..” Kurapika trailed off, words escaping him.

Of course there was something, the most important thing. The only thing, really. _I love you,_  you mouthed in response against the fluttering muscles of his stomach, the silent words your only honest truth. One that would ruin this odd arrangement, one that you could never voice.

“You’re in a better mood when you’ve gotten some sleep,” you replied aloud in a slightly teasing way, your mouth at the elastic of his waistband, the air of your words making his stomach tighten in a particularly alluring way.

Licking your lips before continuing, your eyes flicked up, meeting his. They were glazed over a bit, with the very beginnings of red rimming the brown and set over his flushed cheeks. Beautiful, enough to entice you into falling in love all over again.

“Besides, I like being helpful, and…” You pushed his underwear down, feeling a hot rush of pleasure in actually seeing the result of your seduction. “I enjoy doing this.”

Wrapping your hand around the warm base of his erection earned a lovely sound from Kurapika’s lips, muffled by the way he tried to stifle it. Quiet as it was, the sound made your breath catch, your thighs pressing together as you got into a good position to blow him, gently stroking the shaft. So soft, so perfect, undeniably tempting.

“Is that really so strange to imagine?” you asked in a reverent voice, your lips brushing the velvety head of his dick with the words. The question really wasn’t meant for him, as it was an explanation for your desire and infatuation as it was anything else.

It didn’t need an answer, either.  

Kurapika let out a choked moan when you finally took him into your mouth, wrapping your lips around the blushed head and swirling your tongue across the smooth skin. His fingers tugged at your hair, and you could feel his body straining to not simply thrust into your mouth. The first time he had made you choke by doing that, and it wasn’t as if Kurapika was a purposely cruel man.

No, the sexy noises he was still fighting to cover up were only accidentally cruel, notes from the most melodic of music that would cast any other song in its shadow. They made you want more, to get drunk on the siren’s call of this private show.

Having been doing this nightly, you’d gotten to know some things that Kurapika liked, that scraping your nails across the inside of his thigh would make him shutter, that focusing your tongue on the underside of his dick as you bobbed your head up would force him into finally letting out a straightforward moan. You couldn’t help a groan in response, hot pleasure twisting between your clenching thighs. He tensed up.

“Do that.. Again,” he asked through harsh breaths.

You paused, then hummed again, making Kurapika inhale sharply, his hips bucking up. That unrestrained acknowledgement of pleasure made your entire body tingle, delight filling you as you picked up the pace and moaned against him enthusiastically.

Now, Kurapika pulled even harder on your hair, your scalp burning as he tried to force a faster pace. It hurt, but you found that you didn’t care, that you liked it. Loved it, even. If he wanted you to go faster, of course you would. For him, you there was nothing you wouldn’t do.

It was sloppy and desperate and needy on both ends, but every time he moaned, every time his hips surged up, every incoherent word of encouragement was bliss. Was heaven.

Your angel, your adored, your prince, your beloved, yours, yours yours yours yours-

Kurapika would never love you, he would never hear the thousands of tenderly amorous words you wished to say, or hold you in his arms. But you didn’t care, even if the pleasure was cheap to him, even if wrapping your lips around his cock was all you could ever be good for, you didn’t care, you didn’t care, you didn’t care because right then he needed you and you loved him more than you’d ever loved anybody or anything. It was adoration in the absolute.

When Kurapika came, buried almost all the way in your throat and with his fingers entangled over your undoubtedly bruised scalp, it was with a choked cry. Not your name, not by any stretch of the imagination, but a sound made for you all the same. A beautiful, lovely sound.

His hips stuttered shallowly while he rode out his orgasm, leaving you to focus on not choking and swallowing as fast as you could, not wanting to waste a single drop. Adding to your rapturous delight of having gotten him off, Kurapika let out a quiet, almost contented moan when it was over, his fingers relaxing and hips finally falling still to allow you to pull off.    

Sitting up and wiping your mouth, you blinked at Kurapika. Flushed with pink, his chest heaving with breath and glassy eyes turned upwards, lips parted delectably, he looked, or at least you hoped, satisfied. Gorgeous. Captivating in an inhumanly perfect way.

“Kurapika..?” you asked quietly, reaching out to touch his hand. He pulled it away at the slight touch, sitting up slightly as he looked at you, “Are you okay?” you asked, even more muted.

There was nothing within you but devotion and love for this man, this broken and fallen angel of a man, even like this. Your tender heart felt no great thrill than attentively seeing to the sole aspect of his desire that you could call your own, but when his needs were met and the role was filled, it always came back here. You and him would never be in a relationship. Kurapika would never love you or hold you or kiss you.

“I am,” Kurapika responded, stiffly leaning down to pull his underwear back up, “Thank you for…” He was as awkward as he always was, your departing angel, and tired. Well, that was the whole point of this to begin with. You wished very much you could stay, see to it that he sleep well, but that wasn’t apart of the arrangement. 

“I’ll be off, then,” you said, following the worst part of this routine and getting off the bed.

“Goodnight,” he told you, not even a hint of purposeful malice in the cruel words. The response on your lips that still tasted of him held there for a moment of quiet,

I love you

I love you

I love you

I love you

And then,

“Goodnight.”  


	76. Hisoka x Cop Reader

You’d lost your partner in the chase, he’d been unable to keep up when it became an on-foot affair. Honestly, you would have lost the suspect, too, if you didn’t know the city so well. As it was, your eyes hadn’t once left the one you were in pursuit of. Not that he was particularly hard to follow, with his magenta hair and  _unique_  sense of style.

A swell of victory rose up within you when you finally caught him. Your breathing was harsh, sweat dampened your hairline, and adrenaline pumped through your veins; for all that your new job was dangerous, it felt like living. Until you remembered the danger of your situation.

“Put your hands up and slowly turn around!” you demanded, using every bit of composure you’d hoped to have to keep your hands steady in holding your gun and feet firmly planted. 

The chase had ended in a dingy dead end alleyway, and the criminal was standing at the far end with his back to you, complete still. He didn’t even seem minorly worked up by the running, and although you far surpassed the fitness requirements for the force, you were definitely winded.

The area he’d run to was uncomfortably quiet, a mostly abandoned block of the city void of any passerbys. You tried not to let the isolation bother you, keeping your breathing even and back straight.

His hands jauntily thrown into the air, a mocking gesture, Hisoka Morow slowly turned to face you.

The star and teardrop he painted on his cheeks were known by just about every cop around the nation, the symbols of one of the most wanted criminals of the modern era. He was smiling, the odd shadows of the alley doing nothing to help the creepy feeling he gave you.

For a second, the situation, seeing him in person, didn’t even feel real.

“Are you going to arrest me?” Hisoka asked, his voice heavy and spoken with a flirtatious twist. Those too-keen eyes of his made your skin crawl, alight as they were with whatever humor he found in this situation.

With a deep breath, you set your shoulders back and your chin up, keeping your gun steady.

“Yes, I am,” you told him with certainty. Yes, you were certain. Backup would be here any moment, you just had to keep him with you. Great. You could definitely do this. “Keep your hands up and stand with your face to that wall,” you nodded at the brick wall to your right.

Keeping a lazy stance, Hisoka’s smile became more of a smirk, a look that could probably make a nun blush. As it was, you were glad that you could hide the incomprehensible flush of your cheeks in the exertion from running.

“Are you going to search me?” he asked, not moving to do as you asked as his gaze slowly slid over your uniform clad form. “Miss Officer.”

You grit your teeth, willing your fear to manifest as disgust and anger. Not only a murderer, oh no, but a creep in stage makeup. Right.

“Are you resisting arrest?” you asked in return. A tense moment passed, eye contact between the two of you burning hotly. Then,

“Of course not,” Hisoka told you lightly, completely unaffected by the situation as he did as you asked and approached the wall with his hands still raised casually. Your radio chirped with voices, asking for your status and location, but you had to get him cuffed first. You didn’t dare drop your guard.

God, he was tall. You swallowed hard, willing yourself to remain steady as you holstered your gun and unclipped the metal cuffs from your belt.

“You have the right to remain silent,” you said, pulling down his right hand first and fitting it into the metal slot. Hisoka didn’t resist in the slightest as you tightened the brace. The only other sound beside your voice and the heartbeat you could hear thudding in your ears was the voices on your radio. Distracting. Annoying.

“Anything-”

“Shouldn’t you get that?” Hisoka asked, turning his face so you could see his face in profile, nodding to the radio on your shoulder. You grabbed his other hand with far less poise in fear that he might suddenly attack, but he made no moves to do so.

“Anything you say can and will be used-”

It happened so fast. One second he’d been completely still and calm, and the next he easily pushed you back and caught your stumbling form to all but slam you into the brick wall.

Hisoka had a hand around your neck, able to hold your weight with just one arm while the other broke the chirping radio on your shoulder and pulled your gun from the holster to be dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Those, somehow, were unimportant details, minor things to consider when you were being strangled.

“Used against me, hmm?” Hisoka asked with a honeyed voice, “You must be new, Miss Officer.”

The sudden attack triggered your innate and desperate desire to survive, pushing your body into struggling like a wild animal, your legs frantically flailing and hands curled into claws in an attempt to loosen the fingers cutting off your oxygen. He was using the hand you’d gotten the cuff around, but no amount of pulling on the cold metal made his grip loosen.

All the while, he was smiling.

“That’s a very good expression,” Hisoka’s voice wavered at the edge of your understanding, almost drowned out by the rush of blood in your ears, “You’re very frightened aren’t you? I can see it in your eyes.”

Swimming pools could be filled with all the blood Hisoka Morow had spilled, and you could see that. The sadistic desire to kill shone terrifyingly clearly in the amber eyes gleefully looking up at you. You were going to die. You were going to die.  _God, you were going to die._

“You’re scared of death, aren’t you? That’s good, you know,” he said in a voice filled with what you could only call pleasure, “Truly wonderful.”

Hisoka’s smile was the last image that registered to your mind as darkness slowly blotted it all out, the sound of his borderline lewd voice echoing in your mind. Time and reality became indistinct as the loss of air slowly shut your brain off, subduing your body until you were limp in his grasp. It was only there, at the very edge of unconsciousness, that you were dropped to the ground.

Landing _hurt_ , your limp body thumping to the dirty alleyway ground while your brain was still half dead. There was a stage of painful unreality, coughing and sputtering and taking in big, painful lungfuls of air as you slumped on your knees on the ground. Nothing felt strictly real, your body tingling and mind swimming dizzily, recalling strange memories, half remembered dreams.

Then it all came back, noises and sensations finally fitting together and forming the basis of reasonable thought so you could remember exactly what was happening. With understanding, came fear.

Your eyes scanned the ground around you, knowing he had dropped your gun before strangling you. But where had it gone, you knew you heard it-

_Click._  The sound of the chamber of your gun being emptied made you freeze, the harmless bullet landing by your hands.

Hisoka knelt in front of you, catching your frightened eyes when you raised them with a friendly grin and disarmed gun in hand. The smile he wore was a different expression from the one he’d worn while choking you, giving nothing away. It was like a mask, giving you no insight as to why he hadn’t killed you.

“Chasing me must have been difficult,” Hisoka said, his sweet voice full of praise,  “I’m impressed that you tried to arrest me without any backup or aid. It was very brave of you.” He sounded unreasonably friendly for the dangerous murdering criminal who’d just choked you to the edge of consciousness, who’s list of confirmed kills was longer than your resume.

“Aren’t you… going to kill me?” you asked bluntly, your voice hoarse and choked. At least it didn’t shake, as you had feared.

“Kill you?” Hisoka asked with a little laugh, seeming amused by the idea, “No, no, think of that as an… initiation.” His smile twisted into more of a smirk. “You  _are_  new to the force, aren’t you? I’m sure you’ll go far, Miss Officer… I’ll be watching.”  

He stood up gracefully, long legs unfolding. He was going to leave. You forcefully pushed yourself to your feet in response, using the wall at your back to stay steady.

“I’ll be keeping these,” Hisoka said playfully, dangling your handcuffs to make the metal clank together, “For next time.”

You stomach twisted uncomfortably about what he was implying, embarrassment managing to find a handhold in your fear. It wasn’t important, you pushed it aside.

“Does that mean you’ll be sticking around for awhile?” you asked, trying to stall him. Hisoka was infamous for skipping around from place to place, bouncing around with his murderous tendencies.

“Who knows,” Hisoka responded cryptically, throwing your empty gun towards the dead end of the alley, “But I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again, I’ll look forward to it.”

He was leaving, a casual sway in his steps as he approached the entrance. You panicked, and maybe did something stupid.

“Hisoka Morow, I can’t just let you leave.. Stop!”

He stopped abruptly, causing you to nearly run into him, and then sighed quietly.

“A pity. You’re a very pretty girl,” Hisoka said quietly. 

There was no time to figure out what that meant, or why it made your stomach flop the way it did, before he turned and lashed out with one pale right hand.

The feeling was fire, flames eating up the skin on your face from where his hand made contact, the roar making your ears ring in a deafening scream. It hurt, it hurt bad, Hisoka’s backhand sent you stumbling back and onto the ground, your body collapsing into the dirty gravel while you were preoccupied with the agony of the surprising attack.

By the time you opened your streaming eyes, you were alone, and by the time your backup arrived, he was long gone.

As a swarm of your coworkers and a medic or two ensured you were alright and took your statement, as you were driven home by your apologetic partner, and even as you were preparing for bed that night, ignoring the ugly bruising on your neck, you had a very uncomfortable feeling you dared not voice. Somehow, you felt that Hisoka Morow wasn’t quite gone from your life.


	77. Pariston Prompt: I’ll take that ‘I hate you’ with a grain of salt. Now get in the car.

The restaurant was expensive, everything from the baseboards to the chandeliers oozing money and class. It was certainly nice enough to warrant the sparkling jewelry and chiffon skirted dress you’d been fitted with before being escorted out by an equally fancified Pariston, although that didn’t stop you from being uncomfortable in the eye catching attire.

In all fairness, the clothes were only the beginning of your unease. From the moment Pariston had seen you fully ready and styled, his attitude had been lighthearted and enthusiastic. Excitable, even, as he layered on praise and told you all sorts of stories, going so far as to stray into the territory of making real conversation with you. It would have been nice, maybe, except he’d been busy the last few days, so your last real interaction had been that awful afternoon in his office.

Just to think of it made you squirm with self hatred and a very physical memory of that pain, disgust swelling in your throat.

Your reaction couldn’t have been beyond his notice, but Pariston didn’t address it. None of it, really, not why he had suddenly decided to take you out when you had been living as little more than a captive, not what had happened that afternoon or why he had basically kidnapped you, nothing about what he expected or what would be done moving forward.

It was as if the last few weeks hadn’t happened at all, like you were just a normal girl he was taking on a normal date.

Uncertainty plagued you, the sickness having been building with every minute since you had been taken. The ache of it was nearly as present as the pain, fear, and disgust; twice as bad as any anxiety you’d ever felt. Your opportunity had arrived, finally, sitting across from Pariston with dozens of frantic questions buzzing in your mind and begging to be spoken, but you physically couldn’t bring yourself to voice them. As scared as you were of his answers, you were more afraid that you’d begin crying.

The tears you knew would come ruining the meticulous work of a hired makeup artist would be the icing on the cake in showing how little you belonged in this setting. While Pariston looked right at home in the glittering white interior of the restaurant, you were so obviously out of place it was almost as if you had some sort of sign on your back that marked you as a poor unfortunate.

You couldn’t decide which was worse, the range of pitying to displeased looks your bumbling awkwardness drew, or Pariston’s undisguised amusement at your struggling and embarrassment.

“Do you keep up with local politics?” Pariston asked after the dessert you had told him you didn’t want but he ordered anyway arrived to the table.

The question surprised you, considering until then he’d stuck to relatively banal topics. Looking up didn’t provide any further understanding, with Pariston’s hands folded beneath his chin and eyes fixed on you as he waited for your answer. It was the same pose he’d taken sitting in your dingy kitchen that terrible night, the same expression.

Swallowing hard, you turned your attention down to focus on the chocolate dessert he’d gotten you, trying to shove that painful memory from your mind.

“Not especially.”

“My, my… I was worried you’d say that,” Pariston said, the words layered with concern. The tone brought your gaze back up, surprised to see his disapproving frown.

“Why?” you asked carefully, becoming even more confused about this particular topic change.

“As a citizen of our city, you should feel a responsibility to make yourself aware of these things,” Pariston lectured seriously, raising a finger and gesturing towards you in a way that felt distinctly admonishing, “If you don’t vote in your own best interest, you’ll allow in politicians who only seek to take advantage of you! It’s my hope to help everyone become more aware of the power they have in making a change.”

Pariston paused, his hands spreading out and expression opening earnestly.

“You see, most elected officials can’t understand the average citizens. They don’t care for their struggles and plights, they don’t see the hardship and toil the working class deals with on a daily basis.” Pariston paused again, his teeth flashed in a winning smile, both hands going to his chest, “But I do. I understand people like you, Bambi, and that I care that everyone gets a fair chance in having their voice heard. That’s why I’m running for mayor.”

Although there was no realistic way for anyone else in the buzzing restaurant to have heard his words, you half expected applause to break out in the wake of his grand announcement. As it was, all Pariston earned was your wide eyed shock and confusion. 

Mayor?

“But you’re…” _A murderer, a mafia boss, a kidnapper. A criminal._

“A successful businessman with overwhelmingly positive support from the community?” Pariston finished for you with knowing eyes, his smile unfaltering. You blinked, swallowing the words you had been about to say.

“Already so busy,” you finished weakly instead. Pariston’s eyes flashed in amusement at your awkward cover.

“Are you worried about me…? How cute,” he cooed sweetly, “But that sacrifice is the least I can do for the people, don’t you agree?”

For the people.

“Are you serious?” you finally asked, the realization of what he was saying striking you with a pang of muted horror. A dangerous and frightening criminal like Pariston Hill in the position of mayor for one of the biggest cities in the country. Just thinking it made your chest clench, stomach twisting beneath the tight bodice of your dress.

Pariston laughed like you had told a joke, not even bothering to answer.

“However, as good as my intentions are, there are some who call my character into question,” he told you in a subdued voice, a contrast to the delight dancing in his gaze at the thought, “They wish to slander my reputation through underhanded tactics and lies,” he laughed lightly, shaking his head, “As you can imagine, it’s quite a problem.”

“What are you going to do about it?” you asked belatedly, dozens of increasingly uncomfortable thoughts of what Pariston might do to dissenters conjured up in your still-spinning mind.

“If I’m going to ask the city to trust me, I’ll need to show that I have the trust of one of their own,” Pariston explained. You frowned at that poor answer, but his smile giving nothing away.

“What does that mean?” you asked warily.

“It means that I have a question to ask you,” he replied, standing up. 

You watched with mounting discomfort as he walked around the table, pulling something from his pocket.

Your breath caught, a deep set feeling of apprehension and disgust knotting up your stomach and threatening to make you sick. Unreality would be too kind of a term for the feeling that overcame you as he got down on one knee, it was more like hyper reality, every minute sensation becoming overwhelming and uncomfortable.

“Will you marry me?” Pariston asked with a big smile and dark eyes, opening the box to reveal one of the most gaudy yet gorgeous rings you’d ever seen.

Diamonds, flashing and lovely and exorbitant, were arranged in a line along the band itself, leading into the center where the largest diamond you’d ever seen was set. Somehow, Pariston’s smile still managed to outshine them all.

_Will you marry me?_

You couldn’t speak, the word ‘no’ screaming in your mind, pounding against your ribs and stinging the back of your eyes. No, no no no no nonononono-

His eyes were dark and empty, lacking humanity itself. You had no choice, did you?

_Will you marry me?_

No!

“Yes,” you whispered, the only volume you were able to achieve with how choked your throat had become. The restaurant, although you hadn’t noticed, had gone silent at his proposal, but now it broke out in applause.

Pariston took your hand and slid the ring onto your trembling finger, a perfect fit.

Then he straightened out, taking advantage of your delayed reactionary shock to pull you up and into his arms. Just for a second, his eyes were on yours, looking at you. Truly meeting your gaze. 

“Good girl,” Pariston praised you quietly, his voice full of pleasure meant only for you.

Then, in the center of a five star restaurant under the eyes of the elite, your mind teetering on the edge of either a breakdown or shutdown, and already wearing his engagement ring, Pariston kissed you for the first time. His lips were soft, the way he held you even more-so. A picture perfect moment, you were sure, one that could have been in a movie.

You were glad that he realized you couldn’t be expected to pretend normalcy anymore after his proposal, quickly paying and grabbing your hand -your heavy and sparkling left hand- to lead you out of the restaurant. It took all your focus to fight off the tears that bit the back of your eyes, to stop yourself from choking on the emotions which had been riled up into a nauseating storm.

The sun had set while you were eating, but it was a night obscured by clouds. The moon and the stars, the betrayers, were hiding.

Pariston held you close while you waited for the valet to get the car, his arm wrapped around you with your face mostly obscured by his chest in the case of any stray photographer. In the worst possible way, you were unbelievably grateful to him for steadying you in that moment.

“I wasn’t quite sure what to do with you at first,” Pariston suddenly said to break the quiet night, his voice less dramatized than usual. The muted quality shocked you, it made you want to see his expression, but Pariston didn’t let you go. “That’s why I waited a month after we first met to collect you. I needed the perfect girl, and I wasn’t entirely sure if you would work… But after meeting you,  _I knew._ ” 

After a pause, Pariston’s voice became warmer, turning into a playful coo that suited him much better than that borderline serious tone.

“You  _will_  be perfect for me, won’t you, Bambi? My perfect little fiancee.”

You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until those words made you exhale sharply. There was something terrible about the way he had said ‘I knew’, about that tremor that had been in his voice. 

Pariston released you as the car pulled up, meeting your eyes with a smile, no trace of whatever emotion had been in his voice left. His sparkling eyes soaked in your misery with glee, which only became more pronounced when your own expression became one of disgust, all of the awful feelings within you spilling out.

“I hate you,” you whispered, mindful of the wobbling tremor that threatened to take your voice if you spoke too loud, “You ruined my life… For this?” Your left hand rose, the ring front and center, obnoxiously flashy.

He laughed.

“I’ll take that ‘I hate you’ with a grain of salt,” Pariston said, his smile bigger than ever, “Now get in the car.”


	78. Illumi + His Broken Wife

“You’re completely obedient now, aren’t you? That’s good. I was concerned that you’d never stop fighting me,” Illumi told you.

Obedient? No, in the hold of hypnotic black eyes, color stripped and cold, you were completely and only _his_.

Illumi’s wife, his love, the mother of his children. There was no uncertainty in the fact that your place was here, beneath him, adoring him and being adored. And this was adoration, wasn’t it? Submission and obedience, unquestionable and undying. Adoration was possession. To take and to consume, to change and control.

It was love.

Without a doubt, you knew it to be real. Perhaps the only piece of your life that truly mattered anymore, for the rest of it was dull and empty, flushed by fever and the slow crack of your head and heart. But this? -reality cast in the dark of night and the haze of dream, your body aching and begging for the delight and anchor of his touch- was where you were meant to be.

And you reveled in it.

“You’re mine,” Illumi told you, the cool air of those words splaying across your trembling thigh as his mouth caressed your skin.

“Yours,” you agreed without hesitation, breathless and needy and doubtless in your agreement, “I’m yours, Illumi.” His name was soft on your lips, spoken with the reverence of an adoration that bordered on worship, voiced in a moan when his cool fingers made their way to the apex of your thighs, soothing some of the fiery ache that had been slowly driving you mad in his absence.

The slide of his fingertips against your feverish skin alone was nearly enough to make you cry, but then his tongue found your exposed clit, and you could have  _wept_.

All the days, the hours and minutes and each wretched second of isolation you’d been subjected to while Illumi was away, were wiped clean from your mind. Forgotten, forgiven, cast aside to make room for the overwhelming rush of new pleasure. Forgotten as Illumi’s clever tongue chased away the piercing headache that had wavered threateningly at the front of your skull, as your fever was eased by the ice of his touch and mind rooted once more in the safety of possession.

Illumi was home, he was here, he was happy with you, he was yours. Your Illumi, your husband, your world and your very universe. To be without him was death, but this? This fervent frenzy as he so freely gave you pleasure and passion? This was life itself, of that you were sure.  

Cool fingers, slightly calloused from a lifetime of work as an assassin, pushed inside of you without warning. The stretch brought pain, two fingers being too much, too soon, but your thighs opened wider to invite them deep all the same. A good wife was meant to always be accepting of her husband, and you were a good wife. It didn’t matter if it hurt, because the feeling made you moan, made you crave more. More and more, anything and everything as long as it was Illumi.

“Illumi, I’m… I can’t-”

He didn’t like you to pull his hair, and you were a good wife. Instead, your hands balled up to uselessly fall against the sheets beside you as the intoxicating swell of pleasure built up, becoming icy hot and tightening your core, making your muscles tremble with strain. Illumi was encouraging your fast approaching release, his fingers curling in the most perfectly devious way each time they pulled out of you, the twin sensations of that electric brush and his tongue swirling over your clit nearly too much for you to handle, too much to even be called something as trivial as pleasure.

You were lost in it. Crying or moaning or begging or wailing, you had no ability to tell anymore. The words you found within yourself to say were nothing more than dressing, because as long as he was allowing it, of course you’d come for him.

“Please, Illumi I’m going to.. Cuh-can’t-”

Of course you could, and did.  Your inner muscles clamped down on his fingers when you came, the hot tension breaking and filling you with relief, your hips fighting your control to buck against his mouth and your hands flexing and fisting and twisting in the sheets to avoid taking the alluring lead of Illumi’s silk black hair that tickled your thighs.

“I love you,” you told him, a sob or a prayer or a moan.

It was bliss.

“I love you, Illumi,” you cried out between gasping breaths, your mind driven mad in the blinding flow of pleasure.

It was adoration.

“I love you…” Now your voice was weak as you fell off that high, heart racing and body shuddering with delight.

You couldn’t live without him. It was perfect.

Black eyes blinked up at you as he pulled away, meeting yours that were glazed with the tears of passion and desire.

“You do, don’t you,” Illumi said, reading the truth easily in your eyes. His tone became warmer, sweeter, brushing a lock of hair off of your face, “That’s good. You know I love you.”


	79. Dark Illumi + Fuck toy! Reader

In the same second you were awake, you were also aware that something was very, very wrong. Your cloudy thoughts and memories took too long to filter in, and by the time you could piece anything coherent together you were aware of the position you were in. Tied up, naked, and lying prone on your side on top of some soft surface.

The last thing you could remember was your mission. Taking out the Zoldyck heir before he was old enough to become the head of the family. Killing him to honor your family name, acting in the name of vengeance for an age old hatred. Was that all, though? In the fractured pieces floating around you could remember pain. Fear. Rage.

Now a fog-like weakness made those feelings and memories hard to call upon, made your ability to struggle against the ropes binding you all but impossible.Trying to draw upon your Nen was difficult, sluggish, trying to get out of the ropes was even harder. They wrapped and knotted around your entire body, keeping your arms behind your back and your thighs to your calves. Then, there was the matter of your nudity, which was emphasized by the patterns of the ropes.

Opening your eyes gave you a view of very little, an empty room. You struggled, your breathing getting fast. A bed, naked, tied up like this… It all painted a very specific picture in your mind, but it still didn’t explain the nearly drug-like weakness of your body and your lack of Nen.

Again, you drew in a mostly steady deep breath, practicing very basic principles of Nen. 

Nothing. It was as if your Aura Nodes were stopped up.

“There’s no point to trying to use Nen,” a voice said. You tensed up, fear startling you anew at the knowledge that you weren’t alone.

“Who’s there?” you asked, squirming around in an attempt to move, to see the rest of the room, “Where am I?”

“You don’t remember? I might have given you too much. Your tolerance to sedatives is very high, I had to use a special compound,” he said, a strange sort of praise in his tone as he came around to your field of view.

Sight. Recognition. And then, for a split second, you genuinely wished for death.

Illumi Zoldyck was recognizable, from the hair to the empty black eyes. Once you saw him, you weren’t likely to forget. The first child of the Zoldyck family, and nearly always the one seen escorting the heir Killua around on his assassination missions.

And the last thing you could remember was trying to kill his precious little brother. Just like that, your appraisal of the situation went from bad to worse, your heart sinking sickeningly.

Illumi reached out, making you flinch, but he only used a hold on the ropes to pull you upright, kneeling on your bound legs. A million questions came into your mind, starting with who had undressed you and tied you up in such an obvious way, but the words died as a jumbled mess on your tongue. You couldn’t think properly while nearly completely exposed under his weighted glare.

“Illumi Zoldyck,” you finally said in recognition, your mouth cottony and dry with horror, “Am I on Kukuroo Mountain?”

“I have no reason to tell you that,” he replied bluntly, his expression unchanging. You swallowed, deciding to try again.

“Why is there no point to me trying to use Nen?”

“Right now, it’s impossible,” Illumi answered vaguely.

You searched his face, finding no other answers in his impassive expression. 

The room behind him was just as barren and empty, a single door with some unfriendly looking locks the only thing in the room besides the bed. 

Giving up on both, you looked down, shaking your hair over your shoulders in a vain attempt at modesty while you did your best to collect yourself with your face hidden from the burn of his eyes.

Illumi sighed.

“You were told by your father that by killing the Zoldyck heir, you’d become the head of your family,” he said.

It was a statement, not a question. You longed to know exactly  _how_  he knew such a thing, but you doubted he’d answer, so you said nothing, peering up at him in half frightened curiosity.

Illumi made you flinch again when he pushed your hair back off your shoulder, exposing your chest, which was uncomfortably emphasized by the ropes and knots. With your hands bound up by your shoulder blades, you couldn’t do anything about it, either. He had no reaction, as if that nearly affectionate gesture was normal.

It all filled you with an awful unease. The sexual way you were posed made no sense when paired with this emotionless robot of a terrifying assassin. You weren’t sure you’d ever heard of any sexual scandals involving the family, it simply wasn’t their game.

“Attempting to kill any member of my family is a fatal mistake, yet you accepted anyway. I was surprised at how close you got before I stopped you.”

Was that praise or shock in Illumi’s tone? Maybe neither, you couldn’t exactly tell with the strangely friendly way he spoke.

“Why didn’t you just…” You couldn’t say the word ‘kill’ for some reason. Whatever was implied by the way you were bound  (No, you knew full well what it implied.) was undoubtedly worse than death. But you couldn’t say it, either.

You were prepared to die for this, but you didn’t like to think of it much, either.

“Kill you?” Illumi pushed, speaking the words without concern. He paused, waiting for your nod to explain, keeping to his patient tone, “Compared to the rest of your family, you have a surprising amount of potential to be powerful. I’d say that you could wind up being one of the strongest of your bloodline, maybe even eventually become a threat  Of course, you’ll never be a match against Kil, but I can’t discount your value… Or the risk of ignoring you.”

Illumi made to touch your hair again as it fell further into your face, but you jerked away, fighting against the unbreakable bindings holding your arms behind your back.

“Don’t touch me!” you snapped, your voice shrill with growing discomfort. Illumi’s hand dropped, his expression unchanging as his dark eyes slid back to meet yours.

“In any case, you’re more useful like this than if you were dead,” he said lightly, “If you can give me healthy and strong children, I might be inclined to eventually allow you some freedom.”

Air caught in your lungs, the bitter taste of disgust rolling over your tongue and suffocating you. These circumstances were obvious, leading the mind to only one conclusion, but not  _this_  conclusion. Could this man even reproduce? This terrifying doll of a man having sex or children seemed impossible, you hadn’t even considered you were here, tied up, for him.  

“I won’t… Have your children,” you said in distaste, recoiling at the very thought.

More than that, what would you become if you did? The feud between your families was far older than you, spanning back generations of disdain. If you had Zoldyck children, you would lose your family, your entire life would be gone, let alone the chance to be the new head.

The idea that Illumi Zoldyck would take that all away from you in such a debasing way filled you with a hot emotion of mixed disgust and anger, something you gladly latched onto to replace your fear.

“I’ll find a way to escape from here,” you vowed, raising your chin in defiance despite your position and painfully weighing weakness.

Illumi didn’t react in the slightest, but you continued, needing to hear yourself say the words almost as much as you wanted him to hear them.

“I will and then… I’ll stop at nothing to kill you for even  _thinking_  of that. You’ll regret this, Zoldyck, you’ll regret not killing me when you had the chance, because the second I’m free I’m coming to kill you-” His expression remained impassive despite your threat, pulling bitter words to your mouth in a stupid attempt to get a reaction before you could reconsider. “I’ll end you… Right after I kill your  _freak_  of a bro-”

With an ugly gurgling sound, Illumi cut off your words, his cold hand wrapped around your neck. Using that hold, he pushed your bound body to topple onto your back, landing painfully on your arms, the ropes cutting into your skin as you struggled against the pain of being choked.

Illumi leaned over you, kneeling between your legs with his hair falling in a glossy curtain to one side and his face and body far too close to your own helpless and exposed form. Although he’d obviously moved because he wanted to shut you up, there was no passion in his movements, nothing but cold and calculated control and poise.

“You won’t,” he said simply, his empty gaze fixed mercilessly on your own.

Your emotional outburst dissipated as quickly as it had come, because, in those endlessly black eyes, you saw the void. You felt it take something from you, sapping away your willpower to struggle against the cold fingers wrapped around your neck as surely as whatever Illumi had done to steal your Nen. Even as your body spasmed and jerked frantically against the ropes in a primal response to the lack of oxygen, you were mesmerized by the horror of his gaze.

Illumi’s other hand raised, pushing two fingers into your gaping and gasping mouth but pulling out before you could think to bite down with a slick  _pop_  of saliva.

“After you’ve had my child, you will no longer have any other family of your own. If you escape and return to them, you will not be recognized as their daughter or heir,” Illumi told you in an even tone, a sound that was utterly out place compared to the violence of what he was doing.

The hand on your throat cut off your cry of dissent when his fingers (C _old, how could a living person’s hands be so cold?)_  dipped down between your legs. With your legs bound in half and his body keeping your thighs spread, it wasn’t hard for the saliva slicked digits to push past your outer lips, easily finding your hole and slowly pushing a finger in. The violent jolt of your body in response to the painful intrusion was minimized by the ropes, and did nothing to dislodge Illumi from his position above you.

“My guess is they’d kill you as a traitor,” he continued lightly, slowly curling his finger inside of you, “If they choose to have mercy, it will only be to leave you in the hands of their enemies to kill you instead. No matter what, your death is assured.”

You whimpered, the sound getting stuck in your chest. The lack of humanity the man above you possessed was terrifying in a way you’d never felt fear for another human being. Only a monster could speak so calmly, so matter-of-fact, while choking and cruelly fingering you. Illumi filled you with gut wrenching horror and panic, but it was fading.

Without your Nen to give you strength, you were reduced to a state of horrible weakness. Already, his face and the dozens of conflicting and painful sensations were going dim. Your heart pounded in a vicious beat against the rope harness in mortal terror, your brain screamed for air, but you were losing focus of those things. The void called to you.  

“However,” Illumi continued in a brighter voice, his fingers loosening ever so slightly, at least enough to allow you shallow lungfuls of oxygen to drive out the black edges on your vision, “It’s very unlikely for you to manage to find a way to escape from this place. From now on, you’ll have only one purpose.”

Illumi pulled out only to push two fingers deep into of you, taking advantage of your over-sensitivity from the fresh influx of oxygen. The pain of the sudden stretch made you choke, a sound that was half sob half moan, unable to get past his hand on your neck.

“Have healthy and strong Zoldyck children,” Illumi pulled his fingers out slowly, curling the fingertips against a spot inside of you that made you tighten unconsciously, your lips parting in a surprised silent cry and your bound legs trembling. “And I’ll allow you to live, despite what you’ve done.”

You felt almost grateful for the gag of his hand around your throat, it stifled your disgusted moan when he pushed back in slowly. Again, his fingers curled against your g-spot. The pleasure made your eyes flutter shut, either in defeat or in an attempt to ignore Illumi above you.

It was a short lived moment, cut off when Illumi suddenly pulled away and stood up. At the very least it meant you were finally able to breathe fully, taking advantage of the ease of pressure on your bruised neck. Swimming with tears, your eyes blinked until you could focus on Illumi, who was undressing with a practiced efficiency.

For some reason it surprised you that he undressed all the way, exposing his impossibly pale torso to your eyes. Nudity, to you, was usually seen as a vulnerability, but Illumi looked no less comfortable wearing nothing as he did fully dressed. Muscular and slim, with a beautiful contrast of his black hair and white skin, you couldn’t say there wasn’t a particular sort of allure to the monster in front of you.

That thought died when Illumi turned. Considering his intent, it shouldn’t have surprised you that he would be hard, but the idea that someone so inhuman could have such a human reaction was no less shocking. He stroked himself idly, without shame or even any apparent awareness that you were watching with dread crawling through your veins.

Bound the way you were, weakened the way you were, there was nothing you could do to avoid it when Illumi came back to the bed, carelessly pushing your legs apart to position himself between them.

A piece of your mind, the pathetic dregs of the girl you were most certainly not, wanted to beg him to stop, to just kill you rather than continue this act of torture. Another part just wanted to scream and cry and make it as hard for him as possible. Instead of doing either, you acted on the same stupid impulse that got you a brush with asphyxiation and bruised neck.

You realized the second it was too late that spitting in Illumi’s face was probably one of the very worst things you could have done.

The glob of saliva hit his cheek without much of a reaction, his dark eyes only widening when he wiped it away. Then they narrowed, and icy panic seized your heart.

“Know your  _place_ ,” Illumi told you with clear displeasure, the last word distorted by the way his open palm landed across your face.

The burning, stinging pain on your cheek and ringing in your ears was more surprising than anything, disorienting. You’d been hit before, after all, and the act itself wasn’t alarming.

What  _was_  painful, causing you to cry out in protest, was the pinching, tearing feeling of Illumi’s forced entrance into you. He didn’t stop pushing until hips were flush with yours, his cock buried deep inside with the barest amounts of wetness to ease his way.

In your weakened state, it all jumbled together, a confusing mess of sensory information and strain as you uselessly fought, the ropes holding firmly no matter how you squirmed.

“It would be for the best if you cooperated,” Illumi said, speaking in the same strangely detached way as he had earlier, his displeasure gone. Inhuman. Maybe that’s why he was so cold. Even his breath, which brushed your cheek with each word due to the sickening closeness and intimacy of the position, was cool against your still-stinging skin.

When he pulled out, pushing back in with an experimental slowness, you managed to stay silent. The pinching pain made your toes curl, your hands bunching into fists beneath your back, but you kept your face turned away, teeth embedded in your lip and your watery eyes closed to the gaze you could feel burning into you.

“If I’m forced to punish you, that could create unfavorable conditions for my child,” Illumi continued.

He was moving with more confidence now, driving deep with each slow-tempoed thrust. It hurt, but there was something, too. You knew this feeling, when it was taken at your own pace with a partner of your choosing. Like this, you hated it, despised your body for accepting his, for giving in under these circumstances. Most of all, you hated Illumi for doing this to you. For taking away your control and then saying such asinine and backwards things like it made sense.

“It’s all your… Your own… Damn fault, ah-and,” you began with the angry need to deny what you felt, but your voice was weakened by the way your unsteady breath hitched each time he filled you entirely. You stuttered even more when you opened your eyes, turning your face up to his. Braced on his elbows, Illumi was shockingly close. Even in this, in fucking you, his expression remained mostly impassive, his eyes black and unfaltering.

The horror of the inhuman choked you up all over again, but you forced yourself to continue,

“And I.. I do-oh-n’t care.”

“You should,” Illumi countered in a composed voice, showing little concern for your attempt at defiance, “If you hurt any member of my family…. I’ll kill one of yours.”

Your eyes widened in fear, in hatred, before filling with pain and surprise when Illumi’s hips suddenly crashed hard against yours, driving deep and fast in a shockingly violent movement. He drew an unconscious cry from your mouth, your body arching awkwardly in the rope confines.

“You’ll do anything to protect your family, won’t you?” Illumi continued, petting your hair from your face and rolling his hips in an uncomfortably intimate way while you were still reeling, “As long as you obey me, I won’t have a reason to harm any of them.”

You swallowed a choked sob, trying to ignore the mess of stimulation enough to focus. You knew, at least, that he wasn’t lying, lying was too human. In Illumi’s black eyes you saw a force that was either avoided or accepted, there was no reasoning with a storm and there was no reason to be found in his dark eyes. You swallowed hard, your breathing too fast and mind scattered with a dozen different thoughts and torn with maddening sensation.

“I understand,” you finally whispered. Agreeing with this, even if only for the moment. You swore to yourself that it was only to get through this. You weren’t admitting defeat.

“Good,” Illumi said warmly, abruptly, sitting up and adjusting you using the handholds of rope wrapped wound around your hips. The new position put even more weight on your already stiff shoulders and arms, but you recognized his reasoning.

Illumi Zoldyck wanted to fuck you in earnest, now that he had your obedience.

He didn’t give you any real warning, thrusting into you once… twice… then three and four and five and then you couldn’t count as your thoughts were scattered by the overwhelming pressure of the rapid pace Illumi set. There was no way for you to move, your folded and tied legs shaking and stiff, your torso immobile and easily pulled by the grip Illumi had on the knots, even arching your back only put more strain on your shoulders.  

Maybe you were grateful he allowed you a brief time to get used to him before, because you were sure that if he started with this pace to begin with, you would have been split apart.

And maybe you hated him for that, because if it hurt more, you wouldn’t feel the strokes of heat that each thrust invited within you.

You squeezed your eyes shut to the warmth, to the horribly intoxicating feeling of being used like this. It was disgusting, it was debasing, it was humiliating… But it was as if your body wanted to find pleasure in it.

You told yourself it was just to save itself from the pain of being an unwilling. You told yourself that you didn’t want this, that your bodies reaction wasn’t your fault.

You told yourself that you hated Illumi Zoldyck, but the only thing your hate amounted to was a whimpering moan when his hips tilted in  _just the right_  way, your back arching despite the discomfort.

He laughed at that, a strange chuckle that didn’t show the strain that would be appropriate for the manically fast pace he’d set. You hated his laugh, too.

But hate and lust so easily intermingled when he focused on finding the angles that made you moan and writhe, desperate and terrible sounds drawn from your lips without your consent. Controlling your reactions to things was a skill you most certainly possessed, but you’d never learned to deny yourself a reaction to pleasure. In a way, this was the most effective weapon Illumi could have used against you.

Effective, because as you fell further into the heated haze of desire and hate and need, you found your ability to think thrown out the window. Your ability to address reality and fight was nearly entirely defanged as your body greedily accepted his.

Opening your eyes as the pace Illumi set became a feverish race for satisfaction, you felt an arousal-dazed awe at his beauty. His cheeks bloomed pink against the porcelain white of his skin, contrasted by the stray tendrils of silky black hair that had fallen forward, and his muscular arms strained as they pulled even more desperately at the ropes holding you bound.

He was close, although Illumi made no noises to indicate it. Relief and disappointment warred within you, relief that this was almost over, but disappointment because you were so close to getting off.

To anybody, even to your own self, you would vehemently deny the latter when you were sane enough to do so.

You felt it when Illumi came, pushing deep inside you in a sickening reminder of your situation and reality, filling you with his seed in a hot surge of pleasure and thrusting shallowly to ensure none was wasted. Even this -an act of defilement- felt good in a way. It made you shutter, even though it filled you with disgust.

At least it was over.

Or so you thought.

As if you were nothing but a rag doll, Illumi used the convenient handholds of the rope wound around your body to flip you over without warning. It made you shout, struggling and squirming as he balanced you on the awkward tripod of your far-spread knees with your face shoved firmly into the bed. Unless he held you, you’d tip over like this.

The position was obvious, his intentions even more-so. You could feel the stick mess of Illumi’s cum inside of you, unable to drip out with your body folded upwards like this. Still, Illumi meant to add more, to fill you up further.

If the thought sent a shiver down your spine, you could tell yourself it was in disgust.

“I like hearing you moan. It’s cute,” Illumi told you as he lined himself up again, the praise given in his unnervingly casual tone, “I want to hear you say my name this time.”

“No _-oh.._ ” Your attempt at strong denial became a broken sound of pleasure when he entered you again, the angled changed with him behind you.

Disgust and hatred could only go so far when you were still incredibly aware of the shocks of desire and pleasure he made you feel before, when the heat of a budding orgasm was all too eager to be revived in your tense core.

It was sick and terrible.

But you were so  _glad_  when Illumi began moving, rutting into you with the same fervent need as before. His previous release made the harsh snapping of his hips that much smoother, adding a slick sound to the already unappetizing yet nearly addictive sound of skin slapping against skin.

To take pleasure in such a thing was foul.

(It wasn’t your fault!)

So you used the escape the bed provided and buried your face to stifle any of your ‘cute’ moans. They came in spades, wordless cries of unwanted pleasure muffled by the silky sheet beneath you. It was harder to breathe this way, air coming and going in short pants, and for a moment you wondered if maybe you could suffocate and pass out to relieve yourself of this nightmare.

You wondered if Illumi would stop if you did.

Midway through that delirious thought, Illumi actually  _did_  stop moving. His fingers, the hand that wasn’t holding tightly onto the knots on your back, reached out and grabbed your hair. With a painful yank, he pulled your face away from the safety of hiding. You squealed, your body arching and contorting to lessen the burn on your scalp.

“No,” Illumi said lightly, giving your hair another agonizing tug, “Don’t muffle yourself. I want to hear.”

“Fine!” you choked out quickly, your voice strained in an easy agreement to make him ease up. Instead of letting go right away, Illumi picked up the pace with his hand still entangled in your hair, fucking you full stop with your neck bent painfully and scalp screaming. “Ill-lumi, stop,” you begged, the delirium of unwanted pleasure pierced by this pain.

“Say that again,” he instructed.

His name. He wanted you to say his name.

“ _Illumi, please_ ,” you got out.

“Again.”

“ _Illumi!_ ” you cried it now, your pain sounding an awful lot like pleasure amidst the cacophony of other suggestive noises filling the room, his name falling from your lips like that of a lovers.

He let go, smoothing your hair down softly before that hand crept back up your body. Illumi’s fingers were cold against your fevered skin, sending a tremor through you when they traced the ropes binding you, working their way up your side. Then they dipped beneath, and your entire body jolted when Illumi’s fingers found your clit.

“From now on…” His fingers began to rub your clit in time with his thrusts. It threw all thoughts of your pained scalp from your mind as it scrambled with the new pleasure, with the desperate promise of release. “Your body is mine… If you want me to let you come… You’ll have to ask for it.” Illumi’s voice held a slight strain now, a tension.

If you thought you were defenseless against pleasure before, the feeling now consumed you, coiling tight in your core and bursting with need. A frenzied line of defense occurred to you along with the bliss, easing your guilt of taking part in this horrible act by telling yourself it was just a _lie_. You told yourself you were going along with this to get through tonight, because then you would escape and  _kill him_. 

It was all pretend, even if you begged.

“Please,” you said, a word among the many gasps and moans you weren’t bothering to stifle.

 _Using him!_  You were using him because if you didn’t get off you would combust, of that you were certainly sure of. Even if you hated him, this was temporary. You  _would_  kill him.

If that made your inner walls tighten, made sparks zip through you, you couldn’t be blamed. The idea of it mixed in with all the rest, with the burn on your scalp and face and the bruises on your neck and the way the ropes made you stiff and sore and the pleasure, the overwhelming pleasure of Illumi fucking you while touching you, the duel sensations overloading you and allowing you to forget the circumstances.

For now, it didn’t matter. He was close again, although you couldn’t see him, you could feel it. You were, too. Just a little bit more.

“Illumi, please, I want to c-cuh-” Your words broke off with a whimper, body tensing and surging as you felt the fast build of heat when his fingers worked faster, so cold he was going to burn you. “Mmm, like that… _Illumi_ , please, I-”

“All right,” he said, his light tone faltering ever so slightly. The slight tremor was sexy; delightfully, breathtakingly, undeniably so. “Come for me.”

You might have sworn, or said his name, or really anything, the particulars didn’t matter much because all you could think about was the grand release of pleasure, the final taunt snap of pleasure built up at Illumi’s hand. Warmth filled you from the start point of his fingers on your clit, from the harsh way he pounded into you. It was with a pleasure-deadened joy that you knew he had every intention of following you as you fell into the sweet spot of bliss, the world feeling right for that sliver of a second, heat flaring to the very tips of your fingers and toes.

Through the haze, you knew you said his name again when he finished, repeating the same process as before of burying himself deep inside of you to make sure none of his cum was wasted. As you came down from the high of orgasm, you didn’t mind it.

Until you were down from the great ledge, and your mind snapped mostly back into place.

Until the horror of what you had just allowed to happen hit you hard, and Illumi was pulling out, leaving you aching and spasming, filled with his cum in a way that was distinctly less hot now that you were slightly more rational and able to remember exactly what it meant.

He let you fall, your rubbery limbs collapsing sideways without his help in staying up. Sweaty, flushed, sore in a dozen different places, and now painfully aware of your situation with the unhelpful comedown from the rush of orgasmic hormones, it was with a unique type of misery that you watched Illumi stand up to redress.

“Just kill me,” you said, despising the slight waver in your tone and the weakness of the words, “I’d rather be dead then…” _A mother to his children._

Illumi turned to you with unreadable eyes, looking utterly unruffled by everything that had happened. Holding your gaze, he came back to the bed, reaching out to push hair away from your sweaty face. 

You didn’t even bother to flinch, at least his hand was cool against the burn of your skin.

“You belong to me,” Illumi told you, the statement holding no tender affection of a lover, but instead the possessive stoicism claimed over an object, “Whether you live or die is a decision only I am allowed to make. You have no right to ask for either, your only concern is doing what I say.” 

He searched your face for a response you didn’t have before pulling away, pushing back his silky hair. 

“Right now, focus on having my child.” He gestured to your legs. “If you waste any, I won’t untie you.”  


	80. Criminal AU Chrollo x FBI Agent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> http://asacchi.tumblr.com/post/183822697798/c-h-r-o-l-l-o this fanart of chrollo really inspired this one

Terror came as a heavy impact when it jarringly wrenched you from sleep, consuming your mind and inspiring the instinctive flail of your body before awareness could lend you any sort of reason or understanding to the feeling. You were screaming before your brain recognized the cause for fear, but the sound was choked by sleep and muffled by a hand covering your mouth.

“Don’t be scared, it’s just me,” a voice you recognized said in the darkness. You blinked in a panicked attempt at focusing your eyes on the person, heart racing yet somehow set slightly at ease by the feeling of recognition.

Eventually, you could make out the silhouette of the man whose warm hand still covered your mouth, his pale skin luminous in the light coming in through your open-curtained windows and eyes shining as they stared down at you.

Any sensation of ease provided by your brain’s familiarity with that voice was driven out in a flash of icy cold dread. Perhaps feeling your shift in emotion upon recognition, he smiled, his teeth flashing in the blue-ish light.

Chrollo Lucilfer. Infamous criminal and, until his high profile escape nearly a week ago, a man who had been your criminal informant, helping you solve an ongoing murder investigation from his cell at a top security psych hospital.

This couldn’t be real.

“Hello, agent,” Chrollo greeted you in his unforgettable smooth voice.

That sound brought you down to earth a bit, waking you up further from the notion that this could be a dream. There was no way you could imagine his voice with such clarity. It brought further cries of fear and objection from your mouth, all of them muted by his hand. Searching for some control, you moved to push him away. Only to feel something bite into your wrists and hear the clanging of metal.

The cause turned out to be metal handcuffs, attached around your wrists with the chain linked to the headboard. You looked up at them with a fresh flare of panic. Did he mean to be funny by handcuffing you to your bed with your own handcuffs? They were just a touch too tight, meaning that any struggling was sure to hurt you.

Chrollo was still smiling when your frightened eyes rolled back up to meet his. Without any other options, you stopped making any noise and fell still, assuming that’s what he wanted. It got him to pull his hand away, at least.

“How?” was the first hushed word out of your mouth, “They said that… That you left the country.”

Chrollo picked up something from your nightstand. Your gun. The one you kept by your bedside out of the fear that the FBI had been wrong about him escaping. Out of fear that the monsters you hunted and the ones you worked with might someday find you.

It was an act of paranoia, a feeling that had kept you awake most of the week he’d been gone. The only reason you had been sleeping deeply enough to not wake up right away and have the chance to defend yourself with that weapon was because you had worn yourself to the point of utter exhaustion with stress of him coming for you. The irony wasn’t lost on you.

“You didn’t believe that, did you, agent… Was this meant for me?” Chrollo asked, sounding pleased as he held up your glock. Before you could get too tense at the sight of him with your gun, he smoothly ejected the magazine, letting it drop to your nightstand carelessly.

“You were prepared…” Chrollo mused warmly when he checked the chamber. The readied bullet you kept loaded out of your now-useless paranoia flew out, clattering to the floor. The noise made you flinch, but he didn’t seem to care, admiring the gun a second longer before discarding it and moving to study the things on your nightstand with interest.

Ignoring you.

Considering all you knew of the man, this criminal, it wasn’t surprising that he’d want to intrude on such an intimate yet mundane part of your life. That didn’t make it feel any less out of place and uncomfortably invasive in this extended moment of cold fear and tense quiet. As much as you didn’t want his attention focused on you, you hated the uncertainty of the silence. It gave you time to think. Time for your mind to whirl in a cycle of increasingly hysteric thoughts.

Unloading the gun was a bad sign. If Chrollo intended to kill you, you’d have been lucky for it to be a quick death via a bullet in your head, but that wasn’t his style, was it? Before being arrested, Chrollo Lucilfer had been known by the media to have killed people with pens, but he could be awfully creative and artistic. The flesh eating fish had been a special variety of horrifying.

What torture would he think up for you, the person who had occasionally lied to him and turned a blind eye to undoubtedly cruel treatment for your own ambition?

Chrollo didn’t seem to be bothered by the silence as he picked through the extraneous things you had on your side table, relying on the surprisingly bright blue-ish light from your windows rather than opting to turn on your lamp. You never slept with your curtains open because of the brightness, but now you were grateful for the illumination. It allowed you to see Chrollo in his true form, styled just as he was before he had been arrested and imprisoned.

His ears, which you had only ever seen in person as being bare and stretched, were fitted with his odd signature earrings. They caught the light whenever he moved, displayed by his freshly cut hair. Glossy and black, he’d parted it in the middle and styled the strands from his forehead so the cross tattoo could be plainly seen.

You’d gotten to know, and even come to respect, a nearly boyish looking man wearing the white pajama-like clothes provided to patients of the ward. The man looming above you was different. Striking and intimidating, his black outfit broken up by criss-crossing lines of white, there was no doubt about his true nature, now.

“That smile is fake, isn’t it,” Chrollo broke the silence to say knowingly, holding up a picture of you and your family. You didn’t even have to look to know he was correct.

Correct, because even if you had no idea who this version of Chrollo was, he knew you.  

The idea that he, this dangerous criminal (Murderer! How many names were on the list of confirmed kills alone?) could tell your fake smile in this dim light when your entire family had been fooled was chilling, and unbearably upsetting. It sparked a deep feeling of tragic unease within you that you had allowed someone like this to know you so intimately. But, regret for your weakness was pointless now, only an angry ache in your gut.

“Why are you here,” you asked rather than respond, trying to sound brave. Still, there was a note of pleading in your voice, a horrible tremor of fear. You’d gotten so brave, confronting him with a pane of glass between the two of you, meeting his cold gray eyes with your head held high. No matter how powerful of a man Chrollo was, you always had power. Now you were tied to your bed like some common victim while he stood above you in the dark. If you weren’t so scared, the cliche would kill you.

You felt hurt, too, as stupid as it was. You’d thought you’d become… Well, not friends. You weren’t that unprofessionally idiotic. But you respected each other. There was an understanding (Trust. Trust was the word to describe the childish feeling you’d begun to harbor towards him) or so you had thought. Foolishly, considering how easily Chrollo had just proved that it was a one-sided deal.

“Don’t worry, I’m not here to kill you,” Chrollo said warmly, sweetly, dropping the photo frame with a small crash onto your night stand to look down at you instead. The sound made you jump, the metal cuffs clanking against the headboard bars.

“Then why?” you asked, forcing your voice to hold steady with a uncomfortably vulnerable sort of strength, to not squirm in the discomfort of being in such an exposed position.

“Think it through, agent,” Chrollo replied with a touch of humor and condescension, “I’m sure it will come to you.”

You frowned at his lack of actual answer. Surely there was a clue in his words, but now wasn’t the time to try and think it through. Not when his eyes were so firmly fixed to your face, to your prone form. Panic nipped at the edges of your forced calm, threatened to send your carefully controlled breathing into an unsteady rush. No, you couldn’t think like this.

“I won’t play games if you insist on keeping me handcuffed,” you told him in as steady of a voice as you could manage. That was good. Be reasonable. Get him to remove the handcuffs.

Chrollo didn’t spare a second to consider taking the bait.

“You won’t?” he asked instead, his expression unreadable, “I played yours for nearly five weeks, certainly you can allow me a single night.”

Without waiting for your response, or perhaps satisfied with simply making such a vague and uncomfortable comment, he turned his back to you, taking silent and measured steps to the foot of your bed. You’d almost call it pacing if he didn’t stop with such assurity at the very edge.

“Do you know why I agreed to help you in the first place? Everyone in the hospital had a different opinion, but I’m curious of what you think.”

You let out a harsh breath, put off by Chrollo sharp redirect.

“Are you deflecting?” you asked carefully, unwilling to allow him to lead you into a new topic until you knew what he planned. Chrollo turned to face you, tilting his chin up thoughtfully, but not breaking eye contact. Like this, the light only touched half his face, leaving the other draped in a dramatic line of shadow.

“I like you,” Chrollo finally said, the matter-of-fact confession lacking any sentimentality, “You’re smart… Interesting. It’s a shame you’ve chosen this path for yourself, I think you could have gotten similar results without my help… If you weren’t bound by the law.”

Chrollo drew in a breath through his teeth, pausing as his dark eyes scanned your body, which was more or less covered by your blanket. For the first time, you felt horribly aware of how little you were actually wearing, your lack of bra allowing your nipples to push visibly against the fabric of your shirt. Vulnerable.

“However, I can’t say that’s the only reason…” His eyes locked onto yours. “I’ve wanted you since the first day.”

Silence that stung and echoed with those lowly spoken words played around in your muted mind until finally (finally, finally, finally) your eyes widened in understanding, your heart stopping in its frantic beat as it was iced over with new fear.

The tension you’d mistaken as murderous intent so easily took on a sexual charge under the heat of his dark eyes, making your insides twist unpleasantly and changing the meaning of your defenseless position from bad to worse. It was a molten feeling, tense and liquid all at once.

Wanted. Wanted you. Again and again that word, that phrase, swirled around and choked you. You were afraid, of course, but just as bad was the dizzying confusion. You’d have to be blind to not see the fact that Chrollo was attractive (That was, after all, an important trait of a truly good charismatic cult leader) but there had never been any sign, any feeling or tip-off, any interaction that had made you believe he was attracted to you.

It hadn’t even occurred to you until now that that could be his reason. The idea of such a simple motive for such a complex criminal filled you with shock, but the longer you dwelled on it and the seconds ticked on, the worse the fear became. The more your anxious panic flurried, already leaving you shaking and breathless.

You needed to speak, to force calm, to fix this because you couldn’t,  _he couldn’t-_

“Chrollo, this isn’t… You’re not…Not a  _rapist_ ,” you told him in a voice of forced reason, catching uncomfortably on the last word. Yes, Chrollo Lucilfer was many things, but none of his crimes were driven by sexual fulfillment. That was your assessment, and the assessment of many. For as little as he understood of himself, even he had scoffed at the idea of that profile.

Chrollo just laughed, the sound muffled slightly as he pulled his black shirt off, revealing a torso just as impossibly pale as his face. Muscular. Of course he was, you’d been told of the amount of time he dedicated to training while imprisoned. Chrollo didn’t pause to check your reaction. He wasn’t bothering to show off for you, you realized. That almost made the display more intimidating.

You ripped your eyes away as he undid his belt and stripped to a pair of black boxer briefs, shaking your head to clear the image from your mind. If you stared too long, if you admitted that he was attractive, or that this somehow filled you with a sickening assortment of confused butterflies, what would that make you?

“You can’t possibly tell me that… that the only reason you’re putting yourself in such a dangerous position is to…” You swallowed hard, cursing the awful tremor in your voice and keeping your eyes resolutely fixed anywhere but on his state of undress. “You can still stop this, Chrollo, an-and… and leave.”

He was far more exposed than you were now, yet your skin crawled with a feeling of exposure, with an awful anticipation. You pushed yourself back with your legs, curling inwards to the headboard in an awkward protective stance despite the way it forced your arms to contort behind you.

“I know… I know that you’re not this stupid and reckless.” You were pleading now, willing the words to be true. You couldn’t honestly say them with any degree of certainty, now. Your profile no longer mattered. Maybe it never had.

“You’re right,” Chrollo told you, the words just as friendly as that laugh had been. 

Kneeling on the edge of your bed, he pulled your blankets away from your curled legs, baring the skin to the cooler air of the room. His dark eyes didn’t leave your face, studying every expression you tried so desperately to control.

“You know what I am, agent. Or have you forgotten?” Chrollo asked, as if teasing. His lips quirked into a smirk. “The Spider. We steal what we want,” his voice lowered, the smirk dropping, “We take anything we desire.”

Again, helplessness consumed you. The primal need to fight warring with the dark eventuality that you couldn’t stop this. It was a feeling of sickness, it was absolutely sick to submit yourself to this. Even if you couldn’t stop him, you had to at least be able to say you  _tried_.

You took a deep breath, willing yourself to stop trembling.

“I… I still don’t think you really want to do this,” you argued, “You were locked up for awhile. I-it makes sense that you’d think you were attracted to me, because I was the only woman you really interacted with.” You swallowed hard. “But thi-this… It’s… It’s beneath you, Chrollo, isn’t it?”

In the blue tinted light, you could clearly see his impassive expression when you were brave enough to meet his eyes. Yours were wide with pleading; his were dark, round, and luminous in a way that was on the wrong side of unnerving. Inhuman, almost. With only half of Chrollo’s face illuminated, the angular lines of his features were twice as intimidating, sharp in a way that brought to mind mythological fae creatures.

“Don’t sell yourself short, agent,” Chrollo said, making his way up the bed with an easy grace, “I wouldn’t bother stealing something I didn’t believe had value. In fact, I’d say that I value you more than anyone else in your life. You… fascinate me.”

Your breath audibly caught, the terrible pit of absolute discomfort swelling in your stomach. It was the gnarled weight of disgust, or maybe disagreement, or unhappiness or-

Some part of you tingled to hear such overt praise in his voice.

Chrollo took your stunned silence as invitation to come nearer. Close, too close. You’d never even touched before tonight, you realized, always separated by the safety of glass. Panic kicked in at the thought of him being so near you, of his intentions, it pushed you into an mindless reaction, undeterred by reason or thought.

It happened fast, you lashing out with a cry of denial when he was close enough strike. Although your foot connected in a glancing blow to the side of Chrollo’s face, it wasn’t the straight-on, nose-shattering kick you intended. It was too clumsy, too uncoordinated, and he was ready for you.

Chrollo easily caught your ankle while you were off balance, pulling you towards him with a violent jerk. The harsh movement pulled hard on your arms, the warmed metal of the too-tight handcuffs biting deeply into the thin skin and bone of your wrists. He was the one who’d gotten hit, but you were the one who cried out in pain.

With one hand, Chrollo pinned down your legs while you were preoccupied by the pain, looming above you once more while he probed his face with gentle fingertips. The side of his full bottom lip was split, blood welling into a lovely little bloom against his pale skin, there might have been the red mark of a developing bruise, but it was hidden by the shadows.

“Going for the face, agent…?” Chrollo asked quietly, studying the blood on his fingers, his voice warm in a way that made you shiver. The unnerving tone matched the sharp smile he wore as he tugged you down in a painful motion yet again, getting your sleep shorts and underwear to your ankles in one pass. You only half-heartedly kicked in protest against being stripped, more concerned with trying to spare your hurt wrists and biting down your cries of pain. “Well, that’s fine… I don’t mind playing dirty.”

He didn’t wait for you to scramble together a reply to those intimidating words or deal with the fact that you were half naked, not even giving you a chance to struggle properly. Twisting the elastic fabric of your shorts and underwear tight around your ankles, binding them together, Chrollo pushed your legs up, forcing you into an awkward folded position that, considering your nudity, left you embarrassingly exposed in the most intimate way.

“Nonono.. No, STOP!” you shouted in a desperate panic, kicking and squirming against his grip with as much strength as you had, tugging on your wrists unthinkingly.

Silencing your protests and replacing them with a sharp yelp of pain, Chrollo’s palm landed with a loud slap against your forcefully presented ass.

It was shocking and cruel, and it also  _really hurt_ , leaving a handprint of fire against the sensitive skin. The pain was enough to make your toes curl and legs try to bend inwards, fighting even harder against his hold. When you continued to struggle, Chrollo hit you again, then a third time. It burned in a foreign way, an entirely new type of agony. The few times you’d experimented with being spanked had been nothing more than a few playful swats, nothing like this. Each time Chrollo’s hand landed you were certain you’d be bruised, perhaps even find the imprint of his hand emblazoned onto the sensitive skin.  

“Stop…” you begged through grit teeth to hide the whimpering tone of your voice. You had stopped struggling, not just because of the pain, although that was enough to draw tears into your eyes and make your ears ring, but because of the humiliation of the position, of being crumpled and exposed to him against your will.

“What did you think would happen when you attacked me?” Chrollo asked, his hand running trails of fire over your stinging skin. He sounded genuinely curious, waiting for your response with his round eyes burning into your skin. You couldn’t meet them, your watery gaze looking anywhere, everywhere, but at him.

You honestly had no idea what you had wanted. The goal had been to mindlessly attack, but there was no point in telling him that. Instead you sniffed, trying to compose yourself somewhat and hold on to a shred of dignity and anger.

“Is that what..” you bit out, pausing to clear your throat of the thick tears that were swelling and choking you, “What this is? Punishing me for… Rejecting you?” If you could have managed a properly acidic tone and been able to meet his eyes, the words might have sounded brave.

As it was, they only made Chrollo laugh. Such a warm sound, but mocking. It filled you with cold, made you tense.

“No.” His hand landed again, spanking you hard in the same spot as he’d first targeted. It made you cry out, the sound pitched high and choked. “Truthfully, I’ve been looking forward to trying this,” Chrollo continued conversationally, striking you again, even harder. Your entire body jolted into the cruel touch, your head turning into your arm to stifle a scream. “You’re lucky.. If we had more time, you might have tempted me into doing even worse. Are you trying to seduce me, agent?”

Chrollo paused in his assault with that horrible question, humming in satisfaction as he admired the marks on your skin.

“You’re better than I imagined.” His voice was caramel sweet with the praise, layered with affection as he looked down at you. The rush of gratitude you felt was ugly and suffocating, but for a moment it overwhelmed the pain.

Then his hand came back down. By the sixth blow you were certain you couldn’t bear anymore, that your skin was certainly on fire, being eaten away by the stinging licks of flame. He raised his hand.

“Stop.” You forced the word out of your mouth with as little interference from your pained cries as possible, but it still managed to ring hoarse desperation, begging that his hand didn’t land again. “Please,  _please stop_.”

“Relax,” Chrollo cooed. His hand fell to your heated flesh, but with a delicate touch, moving to pet your tender skin.

The softness of the action made your sobbing breath catch.

Like a soothing balm, the relative relief was good enough to send a shiver of pleasure down your spine, pulling a soft noise to your lips that you didn’t think to stifle until it was too late. A moan, whimpery in the wake of your wailing. You went stiff.

“Do you think it’s appropriate for an agent of the FBI to be moaning for a known criminal?” Chrollo asked without skipping a beat, looking down at you with cocky half smile.

Ignoring the way you squirmed, his fingertips slowly trailed upwards, sliding across your flinching and delicate skin. Despite the way your body was exposed, Chrollo’s dark, round eyes stayed trained on your face. You almost would have rathered it the other way around, just to avoid the spotlight of his gaze watching every expression you couldn’t hope to control.

“I wonder what your team would say to know that you get wet from being spanked by Saherta’s Most Wanted,” he continued, using a cruel tone of friendly playfulness.

Your breath stopped at the taunt, your body tensing completely as humiliation overwhelmed you. The words were a sickening reminder of your disgust, of the senseless unfairness of the pain, of the uncomfortable shame of the position he still held you in.

It all bubbled up, fed by the dozens of terrible emotions and pain swarming your thoughts. Dazed by it all, frenzied by it, you began struggling again, another thoughtless action born of nothing but a need to get away, to get free.

“Shut up,” you demanded in a breathlessly flustered voice. Denial. Denial of whatever conclusions he’d drawn from your uncontrollable reaction, denial of the way he was touching you so intimately. “I’m not.. I’m.. _I’m not!_ ”

Contrary to his sweet reassurance, Chrollo spanked you again. His palm landed on your ass with an awfully loud cracking sound, shutting you up and making you still with a wave of new pain. It made you wail, the sound drawn into a pathetic keen by the way his hand instantly went back to gently caressing the tender skin.

“You were doing so well, agent,” Chrollo admonished, although he sounded more pleased than ever, “If you wanted me to hit you again, all you had to do was ask.”

“Oh, fuck you!” you cried, the most honest expression of your helpless pain and exasperation you could voice.

Chrollo just laughed at that, finally allowing your legs to drop and positioning himself between them before you could attempt a bid for control.

He allowed no in-between moment to allow you to adjust to the new position, no time to think or to control your reaction to the pain of your sore ass making contact with the bed or your frightened shock. You weren’t wet enough for there not to be an uncomfortable stretch when he pushed two fingers into you, but Chrollo didn’t stop at your pained whine, or because of the way you struggled. He didn’t stop until his hand was flush with your skin, his fingers buried deep inside of you.

You whimpered.

It wasn’t just that it hurt, you already had plenty of distracting pain with the way your thighs burned from being dropped out of the pose he’d held them in, how your wrists decided now to remind you that they were bruised and bloody from the cuffs, and the burning hand print marks your ass was decorated with.

The issue was that, even with all of those conflicting sensations, your mind still managed to feel every minute movement of Chrollo’s fingers. Being spanked had left your body sensitized and tingling (aroused, the horrific word to describe the feeling was arousal). The feeling of his fingers inside you was  _good_ , sparking pleasure and filling you with warmth.

When his tongue made its first pass over your clit, your hips jumped against him, a gasping moan leaving your mouth

“S-stop,” you got out in a shuddering breath, “What… What are you doing?” This wasn’t how it was meant to go. The spanking had been one thing, but this was-

“Relax,” Chrollo cooed soothingly for the second time that night, flashing his unnerving cocky half smile up at you. Positioned so lewdly between your thighs, angular and cast in the monochrome palette of black, white, and blue, it struck you again that he didn’t look wholly human.

That frightened and fleeting thought was blown from your mind, though, because he gave you no chance to object, offering no other preparation before ducking down to focus entirely on eating you out.

Chrollo didn’t seem to suffer from even a second of uncertainty, not in the way his tongue traced across your clit and not in the way his fingers curled and thrust into you. It wasn’t fair that he was a skilled lover when you should have seen him only as your attacker, and it wasn’t fair that he’d chosen to attack you now in this most intimately vulnerable of ways, straight off the heels of a humiliating punishment for a crime you didn’t claim guilt.

But then Chrollo found a spot that made you see stars, and the pleasure hit as an excess in the purest, a drug of erotic bliss and depraved torment. It was intoxicating - It was  _disorienting_.

Objections left your mouth, half-hearted and heavily accented by your unsteady breathing and bitten back moans. In your heart, you knew they weren’t sincere, hardly even coherent, and soon they were reduced to nothing but inarticulate noises that might as well have been encouragement.

When you chanced a fevered glance down to see Chrollo between your thighs, you felt the filth of sin in taking pleasure from such a terrible man, but that was no longer enough for you to be able to fight the physical, to fight the primal and increasingly insistent heated lust from his touch.

If they knew what the devil could do with his tongue, would anyone blame you for damning yourself by praying his name?

You threw your head back into the pillows, powerless and lost in sensation. Now that you’d lost that last shred of defiance, Chrollo had no problems with making you moan and cry out for him, your body arching and tensing and singing to his touch, because of the pleasure he was giving you.

He offered escape, allowed you to abandon your mind in favor of his control. It was wrong in every way possible, but that wasn’t so bad, was it? Not when Chrollo was making you feel so good, touching you in a way that made your mind buzz with desire and need. You were going to come like this.

For him.

The thought should have disgusted you, but in that moment you wanted it more than anything. In this miniature scope of base desire on the grand set of your nightmare, the physical was all that mattered.

Release was sweet on your tongue, tasting of liquid heat and need and the faint scent of leather. Your encouraging words, pleas, and senseless sounds filled your room, your body straining as you sought the final burst of pleasure that would send you over the edge. So close, you were so close you could-

Chrollo pulled back.

That promise, the blissful edge that had been tingling your fingers and toes, drew away from you, too.  

“Nonononono…” you whined, your eyes squeezed shut and voice full of a very childish disappointment, hips pushing mindlessly.

You had been _so_ -

Disappointment didn’t stick when Chrollo was soothing it over only a second later, easing the ache of being denied with a fresh swell of pleasure. You accepted his expert ministrations greedily, the dizzy pain of that dissatisfaction forgotten as you began to chase the feeling once more.

This time there was no gentle built and swell. The spark provided by Chrollo’s clever tongue and wonderful fingers was more than enough to have you on your way to getting off quickly, your body wanting it as badly as you did, reaching for it with the same senseless lack of rationality. His fingers curled, dragging across your g-spot with a nearly painfully intense focus, his mouth pushing you to the very brink when his lips closed around your clit and sucked lightly.

Shameless, now, lust drunk and needy, you begged for it.

“Oh please oh please, ‘m close… Right there, please, yes YES….  _No-_ ” your voice broke on the last word in actual despair. Being denied again when Chrollo pulled away at the last second struck you as hard as any heartbreak, the frayed edges of your mind screaming desperation. “Chrollo,  _please_ … Why are you..”

Your teary eyes opened to look down at him, completely composed and wearing that half smile, the undeniable control he held despite the position between your legs silenced you completely. With only a second of rational thought, you realized that this wasn’t an accident. He was enjoying your helplessness, just as he had earlier.

This wasn’t meant to be for your pleasure.

“Is something the matter?” Chrollo asked, casually pushing his fingers into you, making your hips jolt distractingly. It was only enough to tickle the heat in your core, but his unconcerned strokes against your g-spot made focus, even on the anger or frustration or hatred you should have felt for this torture, an exercise in futility.

“Stop…” you whimpered, closing your eyes to escape his and willing away the all consuming sensation that came with the way he was playing with you. “You’re…”

Your words cut off with a sharp gasp when Chrollo’s finger found your clit, rubbing it slowly. Your hips jumped, trying to find more in the the painfully slow and controlled movement, but that only made Chrollo’s motions slower. Torturing you, edging you to madness.

“I’m…” Chrollo prompted teasingly, trying to pull you from your increasingly irrational chase of pleasure from a source that could never provide.

You let out a frustrated breath that came out more like a choked whine, stupidly tugging your hands down in your desperation to touch yourself, to get off. Of course you were stopped by the handcuffs, which clanged and bit your skin, adding pain to the dozens of helpless sensations coursing through you.

“You’re doing it on purpose,” you whined when you reached the powerless conclusion that the only way you’d get anything was from him, stating the obvious because it was the only rational thought you could conjure.

“Doing what?” Chrollo asked, mocking you without pretense. If you were to look down at him now, you knew his dark eyes would dance delight, his lips twisted into a smirk. Even to imagine that was unbearable. Instead, your teary eyes squeezed shut, a hissing whine drawn from your lips when his fingers began moving faster, “This?”

Frustrated focus had made you semi-sane for those brief moments, but when Chrollo went down on you again, that all scattered and surrendered, submitting your sanity to the singular surge of satisfaction. It didn’t matter that you had been upset, or that he was torturing you on purpose, or even that you were fairly certain you didn’t want this at all, because  _it felt so good_.

It was right at the edge, right where you were striving, straining for the sweetness of release with every fiber of your being, that Chrollo eased up. As if possessed by a demon, your back arched dramatically away from the bed, your hips chasing his touch in the hopeless hope that it could be enough to relieve your desperation. Mourning satisfaction, lost in the limbo of desire, your body heaved in a sob, inconsolable in your blindingly senseless need to come.

Still, Chrollo didn’t entirely stop. Instead he switched to only using his hands, slowly and cruelly upping the pace once the intangible threads of climax were despairingly out of your reach.

Keeping you dazed with pleasure, he moved up your body, his lips seeking one of your stiff nipples through the thin fabric of the shirt you’d never gotten out of. The edges of his teeth scraping the fabric against your sensitive skin was a nearly overwhelming sense of stimulation in its own right, feeding into the quickly building coil winding back up in your core, so eager to be inflated despite the knowledge that this time would likely leave you just as dissatisfied as the rest.

“Chrollo please, I can’t…  _It hurts_ ,” you cried in an unrecognizable voice, pathetic beyond belief, writing beneath him. That changed the way you were laying, moving your thigh slightly.

You should have felt fear and disgust to feel his erection, tragically clothed, against your leg, but instead it only intensified your need, your desire. How could Chrollo remain so calm when he wanted you, too? How was it fair that you were the only one falling apart?

“Please, Chrollo, I need to…” you said, the choppy collection of words the only thing you could vocalize when his fingers were still languidly stroking you.

“I find it interesting how easily a person can be driven mad by their desires,” Chrollo said with an insulting calm, his mouth still hovering over your chest, “I’ve seen it so many times, humans ruined by their greed and lust.”

Chrollo paused, withdrawing his fingers from you. Although they’d only been torturing and teasing, the loss still brought another pathetically disappointed whimper to your lips. Before that emotion could torture you too much, rounded dark eyes, shining excitement and lust, met yours.

“I don’t doubt that you’re a strong person, agent… But right now, what would you do in order to come?” His eyes flicked to the side, looking at the clock you couldn’t quite see, “The the night is still early… I wonder how much of this you could take.”

You were shaking your head before you even registered the movement, tears welling in your eyes as a feeling of suffocating and genuine panic filled you. How much more could you take? You didn’t want to know the answer to that.

“Nonono, please… I’ll do-” You swallowed hard, tripping on the desperate words despite how far you’d already fallen. “ _I’ll do anything_ , just no more, please.”

Chrollo watched your fearful reaction without compassion, studying you intently before wiping a tear from your flushed cheek. You pushed your face into the fleeting touch.

“Don’t worry, agent,” he said soothingly, “I don’t want to break you yet.”

“Yet…?” you questioned hoarsely.

Rather than answer, Chrollo disrupted your discomfort with distraction, finally pushing down his underwear, sliding the fabric all the way down and off of his perfect and pale legs. Beautiful, (he truly was beautiful, no matter what protective mindset you’d attempted earlier in the night) but your eyes were still drawn to his freed erection, fresh need striking hot in your core.

Unconsciously, almost unnoticed by your singularly focused mind, you whimpered at the sight of Chrollo’s hand closing around the shaft. You shouldn’t have wanted this, you really shouldn’t have, but when that hand moved, stroking himself in an utterly tantalizing way, your nearly numb hands pulled at the cuffs with the desire to  _help_.

Belatedly, you realized you were crying again, arousal haunting you with the phantom pains of his tongue and fingers, lust cursing you as Chrollo so easily teased out your torment.

“Look at me,” Chrollo said lightly, a demand issued with the casual confidence of a man who knew he’d be obeyed.

He wasn’t wrong. Breathing fast, heart pulsing in your throat, your watery eyes tore away from his cruel display, seeking submission in the danger of his dark gaze. The corner of his plush bottom lip was still swollen ever so slightly, you realized. It was with a dizzy sense of confusion that you recalled your attack, an event that might as well have taken place years ago. In your mind, this bubble of time was separate from all else, a place free of reality or reason.

“I’ll let you come,” Chrollo said, snapping you back to relative focus. There was a small smile playing across his mouth. “On one condition.”

“Anything,” you replied instantly, without even considering the danger of that word. Despite that, the conviction in your desperate voice was far more convincing than any protest you had offered.

As if to reward you for your quick answer, Chrollo reached out with the hand not stroking himself, his fingers expertly rubbing against your swollen and over-sensitive clit. The pleasure fought the muted disgust you felt for yourself, allowing you to sink back into the haze of bliss. A helpless moan left your mouth as you fell, helpless against the mesmerizing allure of his unbreakable gaze and helpless against the reminder of the agonizing pleasure. Helpless against him.

“Tell me the truth,” Chrollo said lowly, intimately, “I want to hear your desires and thoughts, without the filter of shame and morals. Expose yourself for me.”

A flip of shaky humiliation managed to turn your stomach at his words, even if it was quickly folded into the emotional storm that had turned you into this defenseless mess. You had said you’d do anything, and with the horrifically wonderful reminder of the not-enough pressure building pleasure within you, you knew you didn’t have the strength to deny him.

“Okay,” you finally agreed.

Chrollo smiled, his hand pulling away as he shifted positions.

“Tell me what you want,” he said.

Just like humiliation, shame still managed to find place in your response to the question, and no matter how badly your body begged to be filled, to be touched by him, the reality was frightening. And yet, you spoke. And, somehow, it was the truth.

“You.”

“Me?” Chrollo asked, arranging you into position like a doll, but doing nothing more.

He wanted more than just one word. Your desires and thoughts. The truth. You swallowed hard and closed your eyes, stifling a terrible plaintive cry that wanted to simply break down and begin begging. Your control almost shattered to that impulse when he ran the smooth tip of his dick through your nearly obscene wetness, dragging it up to your clit and making you  _shudder._  

Still you knew that if you broke down, he’d only prolong this, and the idea of that was abhorrent on a profound level.

“I want… I want you… Inside of me,” you finally got out, “F-fuck me until I come, please, Chrollo. I want…  _I need-_ ” With your eyes still squeezed shut and mind too distracted by the humiliation of your words, you were caught entirely by surprise when Chrollo pushed into you in one smooth motion.

Your eyes snapped open in surprise at the feeling, instinctively seeking Chrollo’s control through the darkness of his gaze, seeking stability as your mind attempted to find traction amid the overwhelming feeling. Chrollo was controlled, but his dark eyes offered no stability. His smile was madness, and your incoherent mind was suddenly sure that he was some inhuman creature. Dangerous and cruel, sculpted and beautiful. Chrollo was heart-wrenchingly beautiful, but so was the devil.

You were afraid, maybe, but you couldn’t tell the feeling apart from the rest anymore. All of your intense and frightening emotions (too much! They were too much for you to bear, you were sure to explode with the pressure of feeling them) bled crimson lust, swirling into your inescapable and reprehensible need.

Chrollo didn’t give you any time to adjust or to think or to organize yourself into anything more than your senseless craving. His fingers dug into your hips, holding them at an angle so he could fuck you while still looming above, looking down on you, dominant and controlling and cruel.  

It didn’t matter if the feeling of him filling you was good (did any of this feel good? You couldn’t tell, only that it was simultaneously too much and not enough), or that he was a bit too rough, it didn’t even matter that the way his hips snapped against your ass rekindled that awful stinging pain from being spanked. 

None of it mattered (it was all you cared about), nothing else mattered (if it did, how would you stand it?). You were indecently wet, needy to the brink of madness, and broken down from the night’s torture, your body accepted Chrollo’s with all the pathetic enthusiasm of the pitifully dehydrated being satiated drop by drop.

Your want, your need, your desire - the agonizing ache the fast paced slide of his dick inside you both soothed and worsened - was so intense that you were certain you’d accept death like this as long as Chrollo  _didn’t stop_.

“Please,” you gasped out, breathless and gasping, “Please tuh-touch me, I wanna…  _Please_.”

“Touch you?” he confirmed in a low tone. You nodded, begging him with your eyes in the hopes of a shred of sympathy.

Chrollo slowed the pace instead, pushing up your shirt to bunch beneath your arms. Air caressed the sweat slicked skin, sending a shiver down your spine. He traced his fingers over your newly sensitized stomach and breasts.

Touching you.

Your choked cry of disappointment at the cruel joke earned a breathy and rumbling laugh from Chrollo, drawn out into a low sound that could only be called a groan.  

“Have you thought about this before?” Chrollo asked, his voice low and marked with the strain of pleasure and exertion, “Have you fantasized about me, agent?”

Flat denial was your first response to those questions, the most natural answer to come to mind, but Chrollo knew that. His hand dragged back down your stomach, making the skin flinch and flutter, to roughly dig back into your hip.

“Be honest,” he reminded you sweetly, warmly, tilting up your hips to accentuate the words with a harsh thrust that made you yelp, flashing your vision white.

You thought of Chrollo in the cell as you’d known him, wearing white and smiling warmly at you, his dark hair grown out and constantly unruly. He’d spoken in a lighter tone, then, his humor dry but friendly. You were an idiot and unprofessional and morally corrupt, but he was an attractive man, one who had somehow gotten to know you better than anyone in your life.

“Of course I have,” you finally responded. The gutted truth.

Chrollo hummed lowly, a delighted sound.

You had closed your eyes again, but they snapped open when Chrollo pulled out, hiking your legs up his waist. Then he dropped down to his elbows, your chests nearly touching with each frenzied breath. His eyes were round and wide with an excited mania, his smile sharp and pale cheeks flushed.

“I want to hear about them, later,” Chrollo told you, pushing back in.

The change in position made your eyes roll back in pleasure, the angle in which he entered you shifted and your over-sensitive clit rubbing against him with every roll of his hips.

“But for now, I want you to come for me.”

If you weren’t otherwise preoccupied, you could have wept in relief as he began a rough pace, his hips quickly thrusting against yours, chasing his own release with as much vigor as you wanted your own. It wasn’t going to take long for you to finally come, not like this, not when your body was tense and aching and building to it with the intensity of all the denied orgasms piling on top of one other.

It was going to be so good, sweet, splendid, sublime, you strained and strove for it, moaning and crying out with one of your only coherent thoughts being that you wished you weren’t handcuffed so you could tangle your fingers in Chrollo’s hair, feel the muscles of his back moving and tensing and hot beneath your hands.

Chrollo didn’t vocalize his pleasure in the way you couldn’t help, but his voice got twisted up in his heavy breaths, the sound imbued in each harsh burst of air that hit your neck.

Need was all consuming, your entire body becoming taunt and pushing into it, muscles trembling and aching as the tension in your core became the only thing in the world that mattered.

“‘m close, I-” You couldn’t form the words to ask together, your brain sparking with stimulation and body entirely fixated on the place where your bodies joined.

“Yeah?” Chrollo asked, low and amused in response to your choked almost-plea. You whimpered helplessly. “Are you… Going to come… For me, agent?” His voice was heavily strained now, lower sounds mixing with the breathy higher notes. It was so lovely, so sexy,  _so perfect_.

“Chro-Chrollo..  _Yes-_ ”

It was his low, rumbling groan that truly sent you spiraling, toppling over the edge into blissful oblivion with a prayer-like mantra of his name on your lips.

Your orgasm didn’t hit you fast and fizzle out faster. Rather, it began at the point of the thousands of nerve endings Chrollo had frayed and abused through the night, that he continued to stimulate with his increasingly sporadic thrusts. It was like you could feel all of them, your whirling mind becoming hyper aware of each sensation and touch, even the pain was rendered beautiful in this kaleidoscope of pure stimulation.

Lost in it, you arched against Chrollo, tilting your hips so you could take him deeper, feel as much of him as possible. Ecstasy was hot and liquid, intense in a way nothing like you’d ever experienced. It was every second of Chrollo’s tortuous build up and the salve to each second of misery thereafter. He fucked you through it, racing towards his own end by using you, by fucking you harder.

“Are you going to come for me, Chrollo?” you asked in a stranger’s voice, languid and sugar sweet softened with pleasure. The words themselves had no meaning in your mind, spoken without any thought as you lingered in the valley between rapture and sanity.

They made Chrollo swear, his violent hips stuttering and body tensing, breath catching with choked groans and gasps. His face, and whatever expression he might have worn, was buried into your neck, his fingers digging painfully into your thighs. He pushed hard into you, shallowly thrusting once he’d bottomed out, riding out every last second of his orgasm.

By the time he was done, the hazy golden glow had lifted from your brain, leaving you to contend with a confusing reality in the wake of something so extreme. It felt dull. And uncomfortable.

Chrollo pulled out, letting your legs go so he could sit up and let out a big, breathy sigh. His breathing was fast, his hair slightly messier than before, but he didn’t look even half as utterly worn out as you. When his dark eyes turned down to survey the damage, they widened slightly, as if surprised by your messed up appearance.

You blinked up at him, somewhat caught on how unfair it was for him to look so good, after everything. Somewhat caught on the hundreds of emotions you probably should have felt, when all you felt was exhaustion. 

“Eh? I hope you’re not tired out already,” Chrollo said, wearing an expression of concern. That became a smile when he ran a hand through his hair, pushing the messy pieces away from his face. “After all, we have a long night ahead of us.”


	81. Hisoka Prompt "Wow, you'll listen to him but not to me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lol yeet… More AU? Check. Set up for potential Chrollo x Hisoka x Reader? Double check.

Chrollo Lucilfer was younger than you’d thought. Polite, too, so graciously asking one of the Spiders who had kidnapped you untie your hands before you joined him at the table of the darkened and empty club. You sat cautiously, but obediently, keeping your eyes on him as you rubbed your wrists. After being pulled into a van and being told where you were being taken, patted down for weapons and your phone by an icy woman with brightly colored hair, you hadn’t struggled much.  

Even if you didn’t know too much about Chrollo Lucilfer himself, you certainly knew of the Phantom Troupe. One of the most frightening and infamous shadowy criminals to appear in decades. As for Chrollo himself, your only exposure to him, and, you imagined, the reason you’d been kidnapped, was because of your criminal profiler mother’s work on his case.

You had a very terrible feeling about this.

“Are you going to kill me?” you asked without preamble, your shaking hands fisted and heart racing as you tried to keep your anxiety under wraps. Perhaps you should have tried to be respectful and attempt to build up some good will with the intimidating man, but you were far too scared to pretend that well.

Luckily (or unluckily, considering how frightening his collected demeanor was) Chrollo wasn’t provoked by your blunt question in any way. He studied your expression for a moment, completely unreadable.

“I was actually hoping we could work together,” he replied without a hint of malice, his voice smooth.

Which, of course, sent your mind reeling all over again. For a moment, all you felt was the confusion from such a response, especially coming from a man like him. Then, the meaning of his offer fitting together in your mind, fear took on an edge of anger.

“What do you mean, ‘work together’?” you asked before thinking, your voice slightly trembling with sickening nerves, but very definitely holding a bite of acidic humor. One of the most powerful and dangerous criminals in the country had kidnapped you and was now asking for your help. It was laughable, if it weren’t so terrifying.

Chrollo didn’t visibly react to your rude tone, but his unnerving and cold gaze didn’t falter.

“What would you do to save your mother’s life?” he asked rather than respond.

All feelings of jittery and panicked humor vanished in an instant. You froze, your breath catching and eyes widening, all anger fleeing your mind with that question hanging in the air. Just like that, with just one question, and Chrollo had you.

“Anything,” you muttered, before you could even fully process what he’d asked, it didn’t matter either way. Chrollo hummed, obviously expecting that answer.

“If at all possible, I’d like to avoid killing her,” he told you conversationally, keeping his gray eyes locked on yours,  “But I can’t allow her to continue the investigation of the Phantom Troupe. With your help, I believe we can lead the case to a premature conclusion without arousing suspicion.”

You blinked at him, heart clenching at how casually he mentioned killing your mother, then nodded. He wanted the case to be dropped, that made sense. Your beautifully stubborn and morally rigid mother certainly wouldn’t drop it of her own accord, so kidnapping you made sense, too.

“What do you need… Me to do?” you asked, trying not to think too hard about what you were agreeing to. It didn’t matter, really, you would do it. If you weren’t so  _scared_ , you would have been  _furious_  that he would manipulate you and your mother in this way, but instead, all you felt was helplessness.

“Don’t worry,” Chrollo said, doing absolutely nothing to make you stop worrying, “All I need is your cooperation. If you can do that, I’ll have no reason to hurt you.”

“My cooperation in what?” Your anxiety was only worsened by his vague answer, by the idea that there would be any reason at all to hurt you.

“You’re going to use your position as her daughter to bypass certain security methods we can’t and end the investigation your mother has begun on the Phantom Troupe,” Chrollo told you.

If he hadn’t spoken so seriously, you might have laughed at the mere idea. Normally, it would be utterly unthinkable to do something like this, crossing your mother and the police force all in one go, but it wasn’t like you any other choice. Morally and lawfully repugnant as it was, the alternative would be the unthinkable horror of your mother’s death.

Finally, wracked with an ugly and violent mixture of fear, anger, and guilt, you nodded.

“Okay, I’ll.. I’ll do it.”

No matter what the reasoning was, you felt like a traitor for saying those words, for giving in to the demands of a criminal. “I’m… I’m assuming you have a plan?” you asked after a second, trying to chase away the guilt with words.

Chrollo didn’t give in so easily, drawing out your discomfort as he studied your face, meticulously deconstructing your expression in a way that made you squirm uneasily, before responding.  

“Be patient. For now, we’re waiting for your escort. He’ll be staying with you until the mission is complete to ensure your success,” Chrollo paused, inhaling sharply, “I should also warn you that he’ll be watching you very closely. If you try anything stupid, or attempt to cross us… You’ll regret it.”

Chrollo’s eyes were dark and intense, meeting yours with a frighteningly hard look. It was a test of your will, maybe, or perhaps just a way to force your submission. For several electrically charged seconds of silence, you withstood the weight of his gaze. But in the end, it worked. You wilted under the stare, goosebumps crawling over your skin.

“I wouldn’t.. I won’t do anything that would get her hurt,” you said quietly. “But what if I’m caught, or someone suspects that something isn’t right?”

“I’ll have to kill you, of course,” a new voice responded from the door at your back, making you jump.

When you whipped around in your chair to see who the voice belonged to, your eyes landed on a strange looking man. He was tall, pale, and dressed up like some sort of circus performer with bright red hair and makeup shapes on each cheek. You weren’t sure if you were meant to feel shock or fear, settling on a combination of both.

“Hisoka,” Chrollo acknowledged with a nearly friendly familiarity, “You’re ready?”

Both men’s words registered at the same time, pushing you to turn back to Chrollo with dreadful fear in your gut.

“You can’t mean that this is who…” You trailed off because, if you were just going to guess, it kind of did seemed like that was exactly what Chrollo meant. The criminal who would be watching your every move was dressed up in costume.

“This is Hisoka,” Chrollo said, and you could have sworn you saw some sort of amusement in his dark eyes, “He’ll be your escort for this mission.”

“Don’t look so upset, you’re going to hurt my feelings,” the man, Hisoka, said in a candied smooth voice, his pale hand curling around the back of your chair. As opposed to his words, he didn’t sound hurt in the least, looking down at you with a smile. “I think we’re going to have a great time together.”

Your stomach flipped, your throat working against your dry mouth as you swallowed hard. Picking such an intimidating man made sense, from the standpoint of incentivizing you to to do as they wanted, but you couldn’t even maintain eye contact, your eyes flicking back down to the table quickly.

“For your mother’s sake,” Chrollo said, bringing your attention back to him, “I believe you will do your best.”

You stiffened with a jolt at the reminder of the stakes, nodding even as you felt something in your mind run wild with those words.

“If you’re ready, then, we can go,” Hisoka said, his fingers drumming on the back of the chair rhythmically before his hand was gone.

You remained still, unable to move as your stomach twisted into all sorts of awful and painful arrangements, the weight of the situation settling into your mind.

This was all sorts of terrible, unthinkable and unforgivable. 

But, what choice did you have? Did you have any choices? How could you possibly manage to do this? And how could you really think you’d get away with it? What would happen-

Chrollo snapped you out of your stream of thoughts by saying your name, the sound strange coming from his mouth. It had been a gift from the mother he was threatening to kill, a piece of familiarity among this frightening mess of a situation. Your eyes snapped up, meeting his dark gaze with a look of panic.

The cold hardness of his expression brought you down to earth, and your cheeks flushed in embarrassment. Now was  _not_  the time to lose it, not here and especially not around these people.

“Okay,” you said weakly, mostly as a way to steady yourself as you stood up and turned towards the door. Towards Hisoka. Reluctantly, you met his eyes again, which were bright with the smile he still wore.

“Wow,” he said in a mockery of upset, his voice warm with an uncomfortable joy, “You’ll listen to him but not to me?”


	82. Pariston Hill + Spanking

“You know why I have to punish you, don’t you?” Pariston asked sweetly, running his soft hand over your sensitive backside. Although his touch was gentle, you were tense and nervous, laid over his lap awaiting the first strike with bated breath.

“Yes,” you replied quietly, breathlessly, “Because I was… flirting… with other men,” you said, hesitating on the word, the lie. You weren’t dumb enough to flirt with other men, but that wasn’t what this was about. It never was that straightforward with Pariston.

“You’re very tense,” he noted with a hint of concern. Then, freezing your blood, the sound dropped, taking on a cruel edge, “But… This wouldn’t happen if you didn’t behave like such a whore.”

You expected his hand to fall then, for him to accentuate those terrible words with violence, but Pariston’s hand continued to pet your skin idly, drawing out your anxious torment.

“I know, I’m… I’m sor-”

Pariston’s hand landed right then, cutting off your attempt at apology with the loud smack of his hand against your ass. You were familiar with the stinging burn, with the sharp pain of being spanked, but that didn’t ease the agony of being struck when you didn’t expect it. The yelp that left your mouth was one more of surprise than anything. 

“Oh dear… That didn’t sound very believable. Are you truly sorry?” Pariston asked, reverting back to a sweeter tone. Of course you weren’t sorry, but that didn’t matter. The truth was worthless here, with him.

“Yes! I really am s-”  

This time you were slightly more prepared for the impact, but so was he, his hand falling even harder against your skin, drawing a louder and more helpless cry from your mouth.

“I’m afraid I can’t believe you at all,” Pariston told you, and you were sure if you could see his expression it would be one of his exaggerated frowns.

The next hit wasn’t too hard, the anticipation doing most of the work for him, making you whimper in fear.

“I was very hurt by your behavior, you know.” His trimmed nails scraped across your overly sensitive ass and thighs, making you shudder. “The very least you could do is apologize to me…” 

“I know, and I’m so so-” He cut you off, his hand striking you hard, but you didn’t let it stop you. “-So sorry! Paris-” Again, right to the tops of your thighs, making your entire body writhe as you struggled against your innate need to escape the pain. “-Pariston, I’m so-”

You  _couldn’t_. His hand kept falling, over and over and over. You couldn’t continue, your words getting jumbled into nonsense as he continued to spank you, alternating spots and the amount of strength behind each one to ensure you were left with your only thoughts of the horrendous pain.

By the end of it, when Pariston’s hand finally settled on your agonizingly sore ass, you were shaking, crying in a shamefully pathetic way spanking hadn’t reduced you to in quite some time.

“Oh my, you still won’t apologize?” Pariston asked in a sickly sweet tone of manufactured hurt, his palm slowly stroking your tender skin. You tried to find composure enough to speak, fighting the tears and sobs and the distraction of pain to make one last solid attempt at an apology, but Pariston stopped you, “No, no, keep crying. I like that sound.“


	83. Shalnark Soulmate AU

Working at Pink Pistachio Maid and Butler Cafe, to you, wasn’t a bad gig.

If nothing else could be said for the place, at least the money was good. The only other job you had made as much was in a restaurant where the regulated uniform was booty shorts and low necked shirts. Granted, the ultimate purpose of wearing the black and white cutesy maid-style uniform dress wasn’t really any different; it was still showcasing a part of yourself to feed into the fantasy of men who wanted cute girls to wait on them; but the perks of as much tea as you wanted and not having to contour your butt were definite marks in its favor.

So, it wasn’t anything you would tell your parents on the occasion that they called to check up on you and your life as a student, but it wasn’t a source of great shame in your life.

Especially since the Pink Pistachio was a strictly above-ground and reputable business, any employees who brought in practices from other types of maid and butler cafes were let go without trial to avoid that type of scandal. Sometimes, customers just wanted something as simple as being waited on by attractive waitstaff who called them master and mistress, and anyone who wanted more was politely, or not so politely, asked to leave.

Normally, you only really paid special attention to the customers who were regulars, especially the ones who came in enough to bother to request your service. First timers only made an impression if they were remarkable in some way, and that was usually not a positive.

That was what you expected when Lina, a fellow maid and a close friend, told you with an apologetic tone that a new-comer had specifically requested your service, a man neither of you had seen before. Although it wasn’t a hard rule, customers who chose servers based on appearances often spelled trouble. Not that you really had any reason to decline, it was only one extra person on a relatively slow Tuesday, after all.

What you did not expect was your mystery requester to be a young man who was fairly attractive in a, for lack of a better word, cute way. Wide eyes, a soft featured face, and golden, floppy-banged hair, there was no other way to describe his appeal. Not necessarily your type, but you weren’t blind, either. He sat in a corner seat, tucked in a shadowy spot so the glare of the sunshine coming in through the windows didn’t glint on his laptop’s screen, which he was focusing on quite intently.

You approached him with your game face service persona very firmly fitted over any curiosity or other reaction, curtsying in a respectfully cute manner upon arriving to his table.

“Welcome home, master~!” you said enthusiastically before straightening out, meeting his green (or were they blue?) eyes with a smile.

For just a moment, you faltered, caught off guard by his friendly smile and intense gaze. Despite the innocence of his face, you were struck with the uncanny idea that there was something more to this man, although that weirdly intrusive thought left your mind just as quickly as it appeared. Luckily, years of customer service quickly kicked in, and you finished your introduction with a smile.

“As per master’s request, I’ve come to fulfill his every need and desire. My name is y/n, and it will be my greatest pleasure to relieve you of any stress and fill your heart with warmth and joy~! Would you like to begin with a drink, master?”

Sometimes, first time customers were put off by the energetic greeting the manager, Annie, had drilled into you, but this man stayed completely steady. If anything, he just looked amused by the display.

In a low tone, he repeated your name, almost as if he were speaking it just for himself, committing your face and name to memory. For a split second, you wondered if the two of you had met before. The way he said your name, aside from the nervous butterflies the sound brought up within you, seemed to carry some familiarity. But, just as quickly, the feeling was gone.

“The pleasure is all mine,” the man added, his voice louder for you to hear and just as friendly as his smile.

Yes, there was no way you could have met before now you. You would have remembered that smile.

Still, you got the feeling his words were truly genuine, that he really was happy to meet you. But that was another fleetingly silly thought, which you shoved down along with the tingling feelings that he invited, violently denying that you were so weak and desperate as to fall for the friendly smile of a customer at a maid cafe. You were on the clock, and all he saw was a cute maid. This whole interaction was nothing more than manufactured authenticity.

In other words, a big lie.

It was kind of annoying that he was cute, though.  

“I’ve never been here before,” the man continued without breaking eye contact, not showing any sign that he had noticed your reaction, “Is there a drink that you’d recommend?”

Oh. That question. Just like that, the magic was ruined.

 _I don’t know what you like, why don’t you try looking at the menu?_  You thought with a dry frustration, twice as acidic than usual as if to make up for your momentary weakness. The menu so carefully displayed on his table was untouched, along with the extensive drink selection which detailed each ingredient so the customer could choose something according to their liking rather than relying on you to be a good judge of their taste.

“Do you prefer something more traditional, master? Or perhaps you would like to try a drink on the sweeter side…?” you asked, masking your irritation with the facade of a sweet maid. His smile didn’t falter, although you got the unnerving feeling that he could see right past your facade Which was, simply put, ridiculous.

“I’m not particular, whichever is your favorite,” he replied happily. 

You wanted to frown, or to tell him that you weren’t a mind reader. Instead, you perpetuated the lie and played along.

“Hmm.. If you’d enjoy something sweet, perhaps master would want our Vanil-nya Latte?” you offered in your very cutest voice, then, putting your hand to your chest, “That’s my personal favorite. It’s a sweet vanilla latte with whipped cream, caramel drizzle, and a cookie decoration shaped like our mascot cat, Pistachio. He’s sure to give master many, many cute blessings! Nya~” The listing ended with you making faux cat ears with your fingers, tilting to the side with a wide smile.

The blond stared at your little display with wide eyes, then burst out into laughter.

“Vanil-nya Latte?” he confirmed, seemingly charmed by the kitschy name, “Amazing… If it’s your recommendation, I’d love to try it.”

You smiled and bobbed your head in confirmation as you wrote the order on your little notepad of tickets, taking a mental bet that he’d wind up hating the drink and get upset with you about it.

“Purr-fect choice, master. Is there anything else I could get for you?”

“Nope!”

“All right, I’ll be right back with your drink then, master,” you said, curtsying again. His eyes tracked the movement, not in a way that felt creepy, but as if he was simply studying the way you moved. Then again, if you took off your silly rose colored glasses, it could have just been your feeling of doubt that anyone who smiled so innocently could be a creep.

You got one more look at that grin, at his blue-green eyes, before turning away.

In the end, you lost the bet you had made with yourself. He loved the drink, acting delighted by how over-the-top cute it was. It was the only thing he ordered, drinking it all while working on his laptop before paying in cash with a more than generous tip and signing the ticket with your fuzzy pink pen in horribly messy handwriting.

Shalnark Ryusei. For some reason, you knew you wouldn’t forget his face, nor his name. Almost as if you anticipated something more.

–

But, by the time the Pink Pistachio closed that night, Shalnark Ryusei was no longer at the forefront of your mind. You were far more preoccupied with getting your section cleared so you could go home and get in the hours of the much-needed studying you had been putting off, and maybe a cup of sodium soaked noodles, before fitting seven hours of sleep into five and being on time to class the next morning.

Make that three hours of sleep, because once Annie cleared you for dismissal, it was two hours later than you’d anticipated. You were tired, wrung out from the intensity of putting on an act for such a prolonged amount of time, desperate to be off your feet, and not in the mood in the slightest to be messing around with a misplaced phone. Unfortunately, that was where you found yourself.

“Lina,” you called to your friend as you got your stuff together in the break room, ruffling around in your bag in the pathetic state of ‘One step away from a full on admittedly silly meltdown at this minor inconvenience because I haven’t slept a full night in two weeks’, “Have you seen my phone?”

Your friend, and ride home, looked up from tying her shoes.

“No? Can you not find it?” she asked, frowning.

 _Obviously not!_  You almost snapped, the irrational anger bursting into your head in a misplaced impulse.

Rather than acting on it, you let out a deep breath. Which only helped, as it ever did, not at all.

“No, I can’t. I don’t think I took it out of my locker…” But honestly, you couldn’t remember. Although most of the day had been slow, the later part of the afternoon had picked up dramatically, and there hadn’t been nearly enough staff members on call to compensate.

“Let me call it,” Lina offered helpfully, as calm as always. Her solution was a lot more rational than yours, which was to dump your bag out on the floor. She dialed in your number and held it up so you could faintly hear the ringing sound, the contact picture she had for you displayed on her screen. A second later, you heard your ringtone, and your chest unclenched.

The stupid device was stuffed into a side pocket of your bag, which you never used because of your paranoia it would fall out unless secured safely in the inside. You pulled it out with a sigh of relief, cursing yourself for having put it there in the first place.

She hung up, leaving you with the notification for the canceled call. Aside from that, there was also a display for an update being installed. It must have been one of the apps you couldn’t uninstall from the phone, something about security bearing a picture of a purple bat. No doubt something that would only eat up storage space. You swiped them both out, pocketing your phone with a big sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” you told Lina.

“No problem,” she said with a smile, standing up, “Ready to go?”

“Yep.” You slung your bag over your shoulder, leaving the cafe with her and instantly forgetting about everything that had just happened as you considered that maybe getting take-out would be the thing that would make you feel better.

–

Maybe you should have expected it after the oddity of his arrival the first time, but Shalnark quickly became one of your most devoted regulars.

He always followed the same pattern as with that first day, ordering one drink upon your recommendation and engaging you in some light but playful conversation before turning back to his laptop and finishing the drink without any further fuss.

When he left, it was always with a warm but polite thanks and a nice tip. Far too nice considering he only ever ordered one thing and didn’t stay very long, but you weren’t one to complain.

The first time you had met Shalnark, you had felt strange but fleeting things about him, but they didn’t fade the more you saw him. Contrary-wise, the sensation that there was something more behind his smile, something deeper to the fact that he constantly requested you as his server, got worse. As much as you fought against your growing interest in him, sometimes you had a hard time remembering the true nature of the customer and server play-act.

No matter how much you slipped, however, he did nothing that wasn’t your perception of subtext to put him out of bounds. To validate the idea that he was more interested in you than any other customer. Shalnark gave you no reason to be able to question his motives, or to try and push any further, no excusable reason to feel the way you did at all.

At first, he was nothing but a budding interest. At first, thoughts of him were strictly confined to wondering at what point in your shift he would arrive and what drink you might recommend to him. But then Shalnark Ryusei became a part of your routine, a constant in the never ending whirlwind of your life.

–

“You should just slip him your number, I doubt Annie would find out,” Lina said to you as you sat in the library together, her voice hushed to suit the scene.

There was no point in asking her who she was talking about, despite the fact that the words had come out of nowhere. She had been prompting you to do something about Shalnark since you first admitted your curiosity, her words only getting bolder as he continued showing up to the cafe and your interest became more intense.

You frowned and let out a heavy breath, your hand stilling in taking notes.

“Even if he were interested, I don’t have time to date,” you told her, trying to keep the tremor of self deprecation from your voice.

“That’s a bad excuse and you know it,” Lina replied, saying the blunt words you didn’t like to think about.

No matter how much you disliked it, she was right. The real reason, aside from the lack of guts on your end to so boldly slip him your number, was that you were afraid of what your interactions outside of the cafe might look like. Shalnark only knew you as a cutesy maid who made him even cuter drinks. He knew your service persona, not the emotional and exhausted mess of a student you often were reduced to these days.

“Besides,” Lina continued, “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that he just showed up one day to request you and now has become your loyal regular? Has he missed any of your shifts?”

You avoided her eyes by playing with your pen, muttering underneath your breath.

“No…”

Lina nodded, as if that alone proved her point.

“I think you deserve the right to know why.”

She paused, then smiled impishly.

“Plus, he could easily be some shady stalker… Wouldn’t you like to figure that out now, before you take all that pent up frustration and do something naughty?”

Pent up frustration? You must have looked scandalized as you stared up at your friend, because Lina’s smile only got bigger.

“I’ve seen those cow-eyes you at him from the kitchen, but who can blame you with those arms… You’re curious about what he’s got under all that pastel, aren’t you?”

Guilty embarrassment heated your cheeks.

“I don’t-” you began, defending yourself against her mostly true assumptions, but your voice was too shrill and loud, drawing the glares from the tables around you and a childish giggle from Lina.

“I wouldn’t even need to be taking psychology to know the mark of a guilty woman,” Lina said. Your eyes narrowed, but you couldn’t help the way your stomach twisted up, either.

–

That night, in a moment of weak curiosity while sitting alone in your bed, you looked up his name.

Shalnark Ryusei. You truly expected to find him, it wasn’t as if that was the most common name. Clicking through social media sites, however, revealed no profiles with pictures of attractively adorable blond boys.

The disappointment you felt was, admittedly, pretty shameless, considering you had been fully ready to go super sleuth stalker rather than finish the reading you needed to get done by the next day. 

Not being able to find him either meant that he had given a fake name, which would be easy considering he paid in cash and had only written his name for the sake of the ticket, or that he wasn’t on any social media for whatever reason. Considering you never saw him without his laptop, that second one was pretty improbable.

So, fake name then. Another curiosity to endlessly wonder about while your words were confined by the act of playing maid, the question of why he would give a fake name if it was going to be so obvious would be on your tongue while you smiled and called him master and made his coffee the next day, burning to be asked.

You sighed heavily, pushing away your laptop and rubbing your eyes. This was silly, all of it. Kind of creepy, too.

–

Was it out of guilt for being so intrusive the night before that you made Shalnark’s Caramel Cream Cutie extra carefully the next day? You didn’t like to acknowledge the idea that it could be, because then you’d have to consider all the rest of it, and you simply couldn’t handle that while staying in character.

“Here you are, master,” you said, setting the drink down at Shalnark’s table and pretending you didn’t feel slightly nervous. As if Lina’s comments at the library had no effect on your professionalism. “One Caramel Cream Cutie, specially made for you~”

Shalnark looked first at the drink, then at you, his smile wide and easily given.

“Thank you very much,” he thanked you. You curtsied, hating the way the genuine-sounding thanks made your breath catch a bit.

“It’s my pleasure. Is there anything else, master?” you asked, expecting his usual denial.

“Do you like books?” Shalnark asked instead, catching you off guard. It took you a moment to reply, your brain having to switch tracks.

“I… I suppose, master,” you answered, tentatively curious.

“The family of a recently deceased billionaire is holding a sale for his collection of books soon. They’re selling everything, first editions, signed classics, unpublished drafts from dead authors… Have you heard about it?”

“I can’t say I have… Sounds a bit too high brow for a classless maid like me,” you said, your tone taking on a character-breaking humor before you could catch yourself. Still, Shalnark laughed.

“Maybe that’s true,” he agreed with a smile, “That’s not at all the type of thing you would go to, is it.”

“No, master.” You could almost laugh at the idea of yourself going to something like that for how ridiculous it seemed.

“That’s good, then,” he said, pulling his drink towards him and turning away from you. Dismissing you. You waited, hoping he’d add something else, or elaborate on why he’d asked you such a strange question, but Shalnark was already back to working on his laptop.

Fine, then.

“If you don’t need anything else, master, please excuse me,” you said in a practiced tone with another curtsy, stifling your curiosity, which burned more than ever.

–

It was your first day off in a week and you had, more or less, gotten absolutely none of the homework you needed to do caught up with. Which, of course, meant that you enthusiastically agreed to help edit Lina’s sociology paper while she sat in your living room abusing your Netflix account.

But, at some point between the introduction paragraph and the second episode of The Office, your eyes glazed over, sliding over to the window and the sunny day outside.

All too quickly, your wandering thoughts turned to the sole topic of intrigue you had in your life recently. You wondered what Shalnark did when you were off, since the other servers said he never came in. Did he still go someplace for coffee?

As silly as it was, somehow you felt sad to imagine that.

“Your pining is making me sick,” Lina suddenly said, throwing a pillow at you and breaking you from your thoughts. It hit you straight on in the face, making you let out an ugly grunt of surprise and nearly drop your laptop.

You narrowed your eyes at her, but Lina was unrepentant, sitting on the floor of your living room with her notes and study material spread out all around her like a queen in a kingdom of color-coded headaches.

“I’m not pining,” you said as you sat up, throwing the pillow back twice as hard. Lina still managed to catch it. “I was just thinking.”

“Yeah, about a ghost!” she taunted playfully. She could only be referring to Shalnark, ‘Ghost’ being one of the terms she had picked up after you admitted that you had tried and failed to find him online, “You need to either forget about him or ask him out because if I hear your love sick sighing one more time, I’m gonna smother you.”

Had you been sighing?

“Who would suffer through editing this mess if you killed me?” you asked, joking  to cover your embarrassment.

“Touche,” she relented easily.

Aware that you faced being pelted with a pillow if you didn’t, you forced your thoughts to focus entirely on the project at hand, fixing mistakes as you found them. Lina was incredibly intelligent, but her first drafts could be truly atrocious.

After a long lull in which Michael and Jan had their frightening dinner party, Lina closed one of her books with a thump and spoke.

“By the way, when’s your roomie getting back?” she asked. 

You sighed, blinking fast to adjust your eyes as you looked away from the screen.

“Probably tomorrow, she’s at her boyfriend’s,” you said, trying and failing to keep the bitterness out of your voice. Lina raised an eyebrow.

“Oh? Did something happen?” she asked. You shrugged.

“She’s just been so irresponsible lately. First, she lost her key,” you began listing on your fingers, “Then she borrowed my laptop without telling me and did something that’s making it run slower, now she’s taking other stuff and claiming that she’s not… Oh! And she won’t clean the bathroom! She claims it makes her sick.” You rolled your eyes. “Seriously, it’s bad enough I have a job at a maid, now I feel like I’m hers, too.”

“That’s awful,” Lina said, frowning in sympathy, “What sort of stuff is she taking?”

“Clothes, mostly. Books, too, I can tell when they’ve been moved around.” You sighed again. “I’d accuse her of reading my journals, but then I remembered I had a few erotica books.”

“She stole your porn,” Lina stated, the bubbling of laughter in her voice.

You thought about getting annoying at her for not taking it seriously, but it  _was_  kinda funny.

“Yes, she stole my porn,” you agreed, laughing with Lina while poor Michael’s TV got broken.

–

A flash flood warning had taken the city by surprise.

The gray skies and oppressive downpour had set a depressing atmosphere in the cafe, no matter how hard you and the other maids and butlers tried to fight it off with smiles and coffee and cake.

To your utter surprise, even Shalnark was no exception to those feelings. You had almost expected his sunshiny disposition to remain in place, despite the weather, but he most definitely was wearing a frown when he arrived that afternoon. The fact that you wanted to help him so he would smile again was probably not a good sign.

Not that you really cared anymore.

In Pink Pistachio, freshly laundered towels were laid out for the maid’s and butlers to offer to any wet visitors. While there were very strictly enforced rules about touching, drying off their skin and hair with a towel didn’t count as a direct touch, giving a very convenient loophole and a reason to draw in customers even on rainy days.

Most of the time, you hated it. Even to the point you considered calling in on rainy days. You could handle the comments and the stares, but what you hated was having to keep in character while physically interacting with some of customers. It thinned the line of what sort of cafe Pink Pistachio was even further.

But here you were, holding a towel as you approached Shalnark’s table without even the slightest hint of unhappiness in the idea of drying his hair. You told yourself you hadn’t come in today specifically because you hoped he would visit. You told yourself you were a professional. You told yourself those things, but then you got to his table and hesitated.

The rain took away the usual floof of his hair to an effect that was cute, sticking it to his disgruntled face and darkening the gold color. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) the rain had also soaked through his shirt.

On the days Shalnark had worn short sleeved or sleeveless tops, you had noticed how muscular his arms were, of course you had. As Lina had so helpfully pointed out. But today, you got a better look not just at his arms, but at his torso as the wet fabric clung to it. It was just even further confirmation that no matter how cute Shalnark’s face was, his body was more on the side of jaw dropping.

You were a strong girl, certainly not weak to something as stupid as a muscular physique. Of course not. There were dozens of muscular guys on your campus that you’d never looked twice at, unimpressed with the idea that you could be drawn in with something so trivial as a good body.

Yet here you were.

“Is that for me?” Shalnark asked, breaking you from the little spell.

You blinked, looking up to his eyes with embarrassment and apology twisting your stomach. Not once had you ever felt his eyes on you in any creepy or uncomfortable way, and now you’d just been caught ogling him like a shameless pervert. Shalnark’s frown was replaced by the very beginnings of a smile, amusement a clear read in his eyes.

“Oh- yes!” you answered in a distinctly out of character voice, falling into a quick bow to give you a moment to hide your expression while it was forced into a professional smile, “Welcome home, master~!” you said as you straightened up, mostly managing to keep to a more maid-like voice with the regular greeting. “Yes, um… I noticed that you got caught by the rain, master, and I would honored to offer my help.”

Shalnark’s face lit up, looking excited by the offer.

“That would be a big help,” he replied enthusiastically.

“Please tell me if I hurt you or do anything you dislike, master,” you said with a tone of relief that he didn’t seem offended, moving behind him quickly. 

As if to make up for your grave lapse in manners, you began to dry his hair and neck with as gentle of a touch as you were able, catching a whiff of what you imagined was his shampoo or hair product, a sweet lavender scent.

It suited him, and made your stomach flutter oddly.

“The rain really took me by surprise, I didn’t even think to bring an umbrella,” Shalnark said as you worked. Then, even quieter, “At this rate, we’ll have to change our plans…”

You waited for more, but he was quiet, staring out the window.

It didn’t seem like he had been speaking to you, yet you ached to ask him who ‘we’ll’ was. But, you couldn’t break character now, not after such a rocky introduction. The words repeated in your mind, as if you could come to any solid conclusion just by remembering them. 

It was with an awful pang that you realized Shalnark very well could have a girlfriend. It’d be strange for him to be visiting a maid cafe so often in that case, but not enough to make it implausible. Young, attractive, ‘we’ll’… It made a certain amount of sense.

What didn’t make sense was your reaction to the idea, the displeasure you felt in thinking of what practically amounted to a stranger, who you had only ever had paid interactions with, dating someone. Angry at yourself, you roughly shoved those thoughts and that stupid emotion back down. Even if he was dating someone, it didn’t matter to the job at hand.

“Ah, but that’s not important right now,” Shalnark continued lightly, his voice back to normal and pulling you from your increasingly caustic thoughts, “I actually have a question I’d like to ask you.”

You swallowed hard to speak normally, pinning your maid facade back in place.

“If it’s within my ability to do so, of course I’ll answer any of your questions, master,” you replied.

“This one’s easy…” Shalnark started playfully, “Do you believe in Soulmates?”

Surprise made your breath catch. What kind of question was that? Although you waited an extra second in the hopes he’d add more, Shalnark didn’t elaborate and ease your confusion.

If it were any other customer, you’d assume he were playing at something and that you should play back while remaining in character, but you had the distinct feeling that Shalnark was asking  _you_  what you thought. That only made it worse.

“I don’t know for sure, master,” you replied as delicately as you could, unsure of how else to answer.

“Really?” Shalnark asked, holding up his left hand, “They say that everyone has a red thread of fate tied around their left pinkie, and that if you really focus your eyes you can see it.”

He wiggled his fingers, and as much as you doubted the idea that focusing would make something appear out of thin air, you couldn’t help but stare at his pinkie, as well. Of course, it was just a finger like any other. No red thread. And if you took note that Shalnark had nice hands, that would be inappropriate, so you didn’t.

“Hm…” he mused after a moment, “What about yours?”

“Mine?”

Shalnark looked over his shoulder at you, letting his hand drop. The movement forced you to pull the towel away, but that was fine, considering it was now far more wet than his hair. The damp golden stands were messy, flopping in a boyishly chaotic way around his head. You met the eye of his you could see, round and bright and pinning you in place with his odd energetic intensity.

“Your left pinkie. If you focus your eyes really hard, maybe you’ll be able to see the red thread of fate,” Shalnark said enthusiastically. The sincerity with which he spoke gave you pause. If he was messing with you, he was a fantastic actor.

“Of.. of course, master.”

Feeling silly, you raised your left hand, staring at your pinkie. It looked the same as ever. You would need to redo your nails pretty soon, the light pink nail polish was beginning to show a bit of wear. There was no red thread, of course there wasn’t.

“You can’t see anything?” Shalnark asked with what seemed like actual displeasure.

You dropped your hand, wanting desperately to ask him what this really was but unable to. Was he making fun of you? Or playing games? You couldn’t tell, he was impossible to read.

“I guess it’s just a story,” Shalnark said with a smile as you came around to the side of the table, saving you from having to reply, “Now… What do you recommend for me today?”

The rest of his visit was standard, following the same script as always and cut short when you got a sudden influx of customers in your section. After finishing his recommended Chai Love You a Latte, Shalnark wasn’t even able to get a goodbye, leaving before you could get to him.

It left you feeling unhappy about his visit, and especially the way it had ended. You wanted to know why he would suddenly ask about such a strange topic, why he would bring up Soulmates. Worrying about what the answer might be, obsessing over the possibilities, left you distracted, constantly looking at your left pinkie. It left you wondering if Shalnark was actually just a crazy person, and not the object of intrigue you’d been so fascinated by.

–

The rain continued into the next day. Shalnark didn’t show up to the Pink Pistachio.

In what you were settled on calling a miracle, the rain stopped by the next day, but he still didn’t come. Nor on the third or fourth day after that strange conversation, no matter how hard you looked for a familiar golden head in the crowd.

There was nothing you could do about it, and no logical rationale for the heavy disappointment in your chest. Maybe you could tell yourself he was just crazy so you felt better, but it was a hard lie to believe when you hadn’t stopped looking at your left pinkie for that stupid red thread.

–

“Did you hear about what happened at Covington Mansion?”

That was the first thing Lina said to you when she picked you up to go to study for exams together. Her expression said it was something serious. 

As a criminal justice major, Lina often told you about crimes that went on, and offered her opinion on them.

“The Covington Mansion?” you asked, trying to think if you had ever heard that name before without much success.

“Yeah, the old guy died, so they had a sale for his library collection. It was a whole thing-”

“Oh!” you gasped, feeling a weird pang when recognition hit, mostly towards the person who had told you, “I did hear about that, it was a lot of collectors stuff and first editions, right?”

“Yeah,” Lina confirmed, her eyes flicking over to you for a second, “It was robbed… Millions of Jenny worth of books was taken from right under their noses. A lot of people were killed, but nobody has any idea how it was pulled off.”

“That’s terrible…”

“You wanna hear the real kicker, though? People have started saying it was the Phantom Troupe,” Lina replied grimly, speaking that name as if it was something you should have heard of before.

“Is that, like, a band?” you asked playfully, trying to cut the tension. Lina pulled to a stop at a right light, her eyes intense as they landed on you.

“They’re a practically mythical group of murderous thieves, attached to some of the most horrific crimes I’ve ever read about,” Lina told you, her face and voice both dead serious.

You drew in a breath, surprised by her reaction.

“I’m sorry, I never heard of them…” you said, your stomach twisting in guilt that you might have said something you shouldn’t have. Lina turned forward when the light went green, exhaling heavily.

“People don’t like to talk about them, there’s a lot of superstition about it all and it’s just… Nasty business,” she said, “They’ve killed a lot of people.”

“Why do people think they… The Phantom Troupe.. Did this?” you asked carefully.

“The city hired a few Hunters to investigate, instead of relying on the police or anything. They’d only do that for top class bounties and criminals, and honestly… Nobody really knows how someone could pull this off.”

You frowned, your mind spinning with this new information.

“When did this happen?” you asked.

“Yesterday. Apparently it was meant to be the night before, but there were complications… Due to the rain, I think,” Lina replied. Your chest clenched.

“Do you know the list of casualties?” you asked, cold dread filling you. There was no real reason for you to feel anxiety, it wasn’t as if there was any actual connection. And yet,

_“At this rate we’ll have to change our plans.”_

“I can probably find it for you,” she said, quickly looking at you with confusion in her eyes, “Why? Was somebody you know there?”

“No, I was just… curious,” you said, shaking your head at your own stupidity. Even if you had a list, you still didn’t know if the name he had given you was real or not. But, really, there was no way Shalnark had gone to that event, he had just been trading idle gossip with you, and the rain comment could have been about anything.

That logic didn’t soothe your nerves when you went yet another shift without seeing him the next day.

–

There was a chance you had bombed a major exam, but, there was a higher chance that you were far too intoxicated to care.

A group of people you were sort-of-friends with had come to a dingy hole in the wall bar after exams, all of you equally at certain that you had just ruined your entire university career. Lina was busy, still studying for hers. 

If you weren’t so broke, you would have poured one out in tribute for her sorry soul.

It was fun, even without her. Everyone was buying, and everyone was drinking. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d just gone out like this, work and school had taken over your life so completely.

“Even we failed, you know, at least it’s over,” you slurred in a voice loud enough to be heard, clicking your shot glass with a boy who was definitely in your class and maybe was named Paul. He was cute. Not blond or very muscular or soft-looking a way that was actually pretty hot, but that didn’t make him bad or unattractive.

Then you downed another shot of God knows what; probably vodka, although you could have been knocking back rubbing alcohol and not been able to tell until you went blind; and decided that not only was he pretty hot, but you were also fairly certain he was into you. In your alcohol swimming mind, the idea of making out with someone and maybe getting laid didn’t sound too bad.

“I’m gonna go for a smoke,” Paul told you, getting close so you could hear, “Wanna come?”

You licked your lips and nodded with a smile, allowing him to pull you from the hectically loud and dark bar through the crowd of drunk students. Past the door, the two of you joined a group of other smokers on the porch. Although it was still loud, it was more manageable in the night air, slightly easier to hear each other.

“You want one?” Paul asked when the two of you found a spot among the little crowd, holding the carton of cigarettes out to you.

“‘M good,” you responded, taking in deep breaths of the outside air that wasn’t thick with sweat and body heat. It still stank of smoke and a heady mixture of perfume and cologne, but it was slightly more dispersed. Drunker than you could ever remember being, you had to lean against the brick behind you to not sway on your feet. “I can’t remember the last time I…”

Your words trailed off, forgetting what you were going to say. There was a lot of things you hadn’t done in a long time.

“Smoked?” Paul asked, his face momentarily lighting up as he lit the end of the cigarette. From somewhere close, you heard someone laugh.

“No, I haven’t ever smoked,” you said, only minorly aware that you felt a lot more drunk than he seemed, “I think I… Forgot what I was gonna say,” you told him. For some reason, those words sounded absolutely hilarious, dissolving you into a fit of giggles. 

“Oh yeah?” he asked, smirking at you in a way you didn’t mind. It wasn’t exactly what you wanted, but it still managed to derail your thoughts for a few extra seconds.

“I don’t really go out very much, especially without my best friend Lina. Do you know her? Maybe not, she does criminal psychology, but she usually comes, too ‘cause she’s my best friend, but she’s got exams still.”

“You came alone?” Paul asked, stepping closer. He smelled like smoke and liquor, his eyes burning bad intentions. You smiled.

“Yep,” you answered, popping the ‘p’, “It feels good, though, you know? I get too stressed and everything is just too much to handle, and… Oh!” you exclaimed, taking a step backwards from him.

Something, likely your phone, was buzzing against your back pocket. 

“My phone.. Is vibrating…” You pulled it out, blinking fast to focus your eyes on the screen.

It was a call from Lina. You answered it, sticking the phone to your flushed cheek.

“Hello?” you said, but you already knew it was too loud here for you to hear her, “I can’t… I’m gonna to someplace where I can hear you better, okay? Hold on!” you slurred, “I’ll be right back,” you said to Paul, smiling at him. He frowned, but you were too drunk to care.

Stumbling past all the people on the porch, and then through the busy and obnoxiously loud bar, you tried to hurry without falling. You took a lot of elbows for your efforts, but your head felt like it was floating and there was no pain to accompany the blows. Outside in the semi-quiet and uncomfortably dark night time air, you finally stopped.

“Okay, can you hear me?” you asked. No reply. “Lina? Helloooo…”

The disconnected tone sounded. She hung up on you. Upset and a bit confused, you worked on getting your phone unlocked and open so you could call her back, only to be stopped when you heard someone say your name.

Acting on very basic instinct of responding when called, you looked up.

And then you saw an angel.

Shalnark was smiling, both his smile and his hair glinting prettily in the light over the top of the bar’s entrance. He was also wearing odd clothes, although they were still colored in his usual pastels and his arms were bare, so you decided you liked it.

“You’re here!” you called to him, something that could have been excitement but could have easily have been uncomfortable surprise in your voice. If you weren’t drunk, maybe you would have questioned the situation, but right then, it made perfect sense to you that Shalnark would suddenly show up where you were at this moment in time.

“What a coincidence,” Shalnark said happily, walking up to you. Yes, what a coincidence that he would come alone to a bar primarily targeted at students on a night you were drinking.

“Yeah, it’s a small wor…. Wait,” you interrupted yourself, frowning suddenly and very seriously, “I thought you were dead.”

Shalnark looked at you for a prolonged moment, then laughed.

“Dead? Because I didn’t visit you?” he asked, his voice playfully curious. You got the impression he was mocking you.

That only made you frown deeper.

“No, because you were at the… the…. Books! You were there, weren’t you? The Phantom Troupe was there, Lina said, and… and… and they killed people!” you said in a drunken mess of words, aware that you were getting embarrassingly worked up and unable to stop yourself, “So I was scared you went and got killed by them and that was why you didn’t come in and I never even asked you all of the trillion of questions I have because I was working and you only came when I was being a maid and I-”

Cutting you off and stopping you from reaching a full on panic, Shalnark wrapped you in his arms, pulling you into a hug. The affectionate action, the touch you’d been aching for, effectively shut your brain, and the words it was producing, right off.

“You were worried the Phantom Troupe killed me?” Shalnark asked with an amusement you couldn’t fathom. Still, you could feel the pleasant sensation of his voice rumbling against you, and when you breathed in deeply you could smell that lavender scent you had caught in his hair on that rainy day.

He couldn’t see you, but you didn’t know how to form the words to speak, so you just nodded.

“That’s very cute,” Shalnark cooed, “I’m glad I came, then. I wasn’t going to do this just yet, but you were going to sleep with that guy, weren’t you.” He released you, meeting your eyes as the world swum around him. 

Before he could speak, he froze, as if sensing something happening. 

“Oh boy, he’s coming to find you.” Shalnark sighed, looking very put-upon, “I’ll take you home, then. Come on.”

“Take me home…?” you asked, not struggling against his hold as he lead you away from the bar.

“You can’t expect to walk home like this, you can barely stand,” Shalnark said, making his point by the way he was half holding you up.

This, of course, was absolutely hilarious.

“No touching is the rule, you know,” you slurred, unable to stop giggling, “You’re a bad boy rule breaker~”

“I know, I know, but if I let you go, you’ll fall,” Shalnark responded, smiling at your antics in a way that made your heart flutter. No amount of sultry smirks could compare.

“No, I like it! I like you, you know?” To make your point, you moved even closer to him, pressing your fever hot body to his natural warmth. “I wanted to…. To get to know you, but I’m…” you frowned, all laughter gone from your swimming mind, “Boring. You’ll think I’m boring and not like me.”

“That’s not true,” he said, frowning at your assessment, “I’m sorry I let you feel that way. I’ve been busy with something else.”

Shalnark opened the passenger seat of the car he’d led you to, which you easily climbed into with his help. It smelled like new car, clean and polished. It was also way too bright, making you wince and shut your eyes as he got into the other side.

“I promise to make that up to you! From now on, you’ll have my full attention. Okay?” he asked, starting the engine. 

Right then, it didn’t matter that none of this made any sense or that you had just willingly gotten into his car while drunk out of your mind, because you liked the idea of having his full attention. You liked it  _a lot_.

So you smiled and giggled and agreed and didn’t question why Shalnark knew where you lived. Or why he had a key. Or how he knew where everything was to get you water and pills to mitigate the hangover you’d cruelly ensured for yourself.

Alcohol ensured you wouldn’t remember Shalnark undressing you or your drunken and clumsy flirtations, that you would forget your embarrassing and slurred sexual requests and comments that he laughed off. The next day you’d have no recollection of him easily finding you pajamas to wear and dressing you like a Barbie Inebriate, or that you fell asleep to the soothing feeling of him brushing your hair from your flushed face.

It was without any of these memories that you awoke to a morning that hit you like a ton of bricks. 

You rolled over and groaned, not immediately aware that there was anything wrong until you rolled into another body. That got your attention, at least.

Recoiling, you pulled away, taking in several things in very quick succession. You were fully dressed in a set of pajamas and nearly entirely certain you hadn’t had sex last night. The last thing you could remember was taking shots with some guy from class you had intended on sleeping with, but it wasn’t him in your bed.

It was Shalnark. His lovely golden hair was on your pillow like a halo, his bare chest poking out from the top of your blanket. You wanted to know two things very badly: How was he still so lovely even in the morning, and how had he ended up here?

Unfortunately, you were caught mute as his eyes opened and fixed on you, his face breaking out into a grin upon catching you unabashedly staring.

“You should see your expression right now,” Shalnark teased casually as he sat up, the blanket pooling to his waist. 

The completely bare view of his torso didn’t help in the slightest with your inability to speak. Perhaps it was hangover, or maybe you were just this inept with dealing with attractive men in your bed, but you were unable do anything but stare as you waited for some sort of answer. Instead, 

“Your head hurts pretty bad, doesn’t it,” he said knowingly, “Here..”

Shalnark handed you a glass of water and two little white pills from your bedside table, which you accepted in unsteady hands, still stuck in a state of mute shock. 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything to you last night,” he soothed, although that wasn’t exactly your concern, nor did it answer why he had stayed anyway. 

Although you wanted to ask about a hundred question, your splitting head dictated you take the pills, drinking all of the water once your body remembered that your fun last night had left you dehydrated and aching.

“Thank you,” you said in a raspy voice once you had downed it all, unsure of which part you were even thanking him for. “Uh… So, why did you..”

Your words trailed off as Shalnark turned to put his feet on the floor, stretching his arms above his head. Unlike before, it wasn’t his, admittedly, very nice back that choked your voice.

Arachnophobia was the fear of spiders, one of the most common fears in a person could have. You weren’t afraid of them, per se, but seeing the tattoo on his back made a compelling argument that you could be.  _‘They say each of the members have a spider tattoo to signify their loyalty,’_  Lina had told you, one of the few bits of information she had about the Phantom Troupe that actually seemed real.

Your just-woken-up and hungover brain was slow, chugging through the information at the rate of your first dinosaur of a desktop computer, but the connections were already made, they had just been the wrong ones.

It made you wish you hadn’t drank the water so quickly, because nausea  was fighting its way up your stomach and throat in nerves as everything pieced together. You were going to play dumb, fully prepared to pretend you had no idea what that tattoo meant and leave it be, but Shalnark smiled cheekily back at you over his shoulder.

“Your friend told you everything, didn’t she? She’s a good friend… You’re going to have to think of a really good lie to convince her why you choosing to leave,” Shalnark said, making your heart freeze in your chest.

“What are you talking about?” you asked in a dazed whisper. It felt very much like a haze of liquor was still fogging your mind. That was the only possible answer to all of this, to the confusion that left you staring and completely still in the face of danger.

“We’re Soulmates,” Shalnark replied with a matter-of-fact voice of unbreakable truth and conviction, holding up his left hand pinkie. “I was disappointed you couldn’t see it, but you can learn once your Aura Nodes are opened. Until then, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to stay here, there’s too much risk. However, once you see the truth, I’m sure you’ll agree that being together is the best decision.” 

He paused, turning back towards you more fully with a smile. 

“It’s pretty lucky we happened to pick a job that was in your city, huh? But since it’s over, we’re all leaving.”

“I don’t understand,” you said stupidly, although you most certainly did. At least some of it. The very worst parts of the situation that had your heart sunken all the way down into your gut. 

“Soulmates are meant to be together,” Shalnark said sweetly, his smile as innocent and charming as ever. Then he turned around to stand up, speaking with a jaunty practicality, “Now get up, I’ll help you pack. Ideally, we’ll be out of the city by tonight.”


	84. Dark Illumi Part 2

Running had become almost too much for your straining and Aura drained body. You’d never extended yourself in this way, and captivity had left you in less than perfect condition.

Truthfully, though, even before you had been stolen and locked away, when you were on your way to becoming your families prized heir, you weren’t sure if you could have done this any better. There had never been an enemy or monster powerful enough to require it, and you were certain by now that the one pursuing you was a monster. A demon devoid of any and all humanity, one who polluted and defiled your body, who used you like an object.

Thinking you could kill him was idiocy of the worst type. Overconfident and cocky. That hope, that belief, had long been struck from your mind. But now you knew that even the idea that you could outsmart Illumi was an idiotic pipe dream, that believing yourself capable of truly escaping the prison he’d trapped you within was a fool’s errand.

That left you with the miserable Plan C. Maybe you could feel pride that he was at least forced to hunt you down, that he would never get the child he had so desperately hurt you for. He was forced to acknowledge defeat, even if it was only in some small way.

It was a hollow and fleeting victory, eaten away just like every other coherent thought as you followed a far more base instinct than anything like revenge or pride.

Run.

It was a primal desire that screamed within your jack-hammering heart, an urgent and senseless need to flee from danger. The sound of your footsteps pounded on the cracked and broken streets as you raced through the deadened outskirts of some city. There was no destination in your fatigue clouded mind, no real goal, you didn’t even know where you were.

Your logical mind had already accepted death, accepted the only remaining escape now that all else had failed, but the deeper part of your brain that pushed you further into the city rejected that thought. You would run until you couldn’t. Run because that was all you could do.

Run.

Running even as you became heavy with a soul deep agony and a terror so strong you couldn’t even force your eyes to look behind you.

Running as you choked on fear, on the tangy iron flavor of blood sitting heavy on your dry tongue, as your skin prickled and burned with the sweat dampening your hairline and drying cooly on your red flushed face.

Running as every muscle on your body felt ready to rip from bone, as nausea pulsed like a rhythmic punch to your stomach.

There wasn’t enough air. Each sharp exhale hurt, burned, but the desperate attempt to inhale was worse. The dry sandpaper of your throat was rubbed raw by the thin amounts of oxygen you could manage to force into your aching lungs. It hurt to breath, everything hurt, but you couldn’t stop. If you did, you wouldn’t be able to get back up.

You heard noises ahead, above the dull roar of blood in your ears. People?

Hope sprung up against any reason or intelligent thought. It was the animal belief that there was safety in numbers, that isolation was the defining weakness of your defeat.

Having a goal set something to rights within you, unleashing a last burst of strength you certainly didn’t have to spare.

And then, you rounded the corner.

Hope dissipated like smoke the second you saw what you’d fresh hell you’d ran right into.  Had he been leading you here? Guiding you to this spot like a lamb to slaughter?

Carelessly, idiotically, you tried to turn and to go back the way you came, reacting only to the sudden strike of new horror rather than the uncoordinated movements of your over-exhausted body. The sharp turn sent you toppling onto the uncared for and dirty street.

You hit the ground hard.

Whatever breath you had left was pushed from your lungs, your tired body splaying like a rag doll because you lacked the energy to save it. Your eyes burned with tears, your nose filled with the the acrid scent of smoke and the filth of the street, the taste of blood nearly choking you as your stomach threatened to spit bile. For a miniature eternity, that was all there was. Panic, fear, and pain.

Then, there were hands. Dozens of them, what felt like hundreds. They grasped at your flushed skin and pulled on your sweaty hair, grabbing your heavy arms and aching legs and tearing at your clothes. You struggled and grunted in fearful dissent, short of breath and caught mindless in the aftermath of your panicked escape.

As you fought with your jelly-like limbs, sent out weak elbows and kicks, you couldn’t remember the logic of your ultimate goal, of your defeated acceptance of death over being held captive. You couldn’t remember anything. You were  _scared_.

This was the horror, his horror. Empty eyed men and women shuffling and moving with awkwardly jerky movements like they were being cast for a bad zombie movie, doing anything he said at the expense of their own well-being. Needlemen. Illumi wasn’t among them, but they lived only from his Aura. You could taste it in the air around them, feel the oppressive vice of it in their movements.

When your mouth opened in a panicked scream you didn’t have enough breath to fuel, a hand covered it. Choking you, suffocating you with claustrophobia as they pulled your useless and trembling body up. Even if you weren’t restrained by the icy cold hands of the dead, packed between bodies and restrained with their arms, you doubted you’d have any strength to really fight when your eyes landed on him.

The obnoxiously loud thundering, pounding, pulsing heartbeat in your chest, in your throat, in your head, must have stopped. Deadened and frozen, turning your blood to ice in your veins.  

Each of Illumi’s casual footsteps echoed around in the disturbingly silent street, coming at a measured pace as he approached. His empty expression was shadowed unnervingly by the streetlamps, his long hair swaying behind him, but none of that really mattered when you could feel him looking at you.

The entire day, your escape and the endless sprint towards an impossible goal while tailed by an unseen phantom, had been shrouded with a veil of delusion. Unreality based in the panic and despair of your broken life.

But this, now? This was real. Those eyes, impossibly dark and swirling and staring and capturing you entirely, were the only thing that was real anymore.

When you relaxed, as did the hands over your face, the ones with too-tight grips easing up slightly. Maybe you could have used that as a chance to shake off their hold, but you couldn’t. You couldn’t do anything. Powerless, always so powerless when confronted with that gaze.

“Hey,” Illumi greeted you, his voice and word choice disturbingly casual. Your body jolted and wiggled in a gut reaction to the sound, but the bodies keeping you still didn’t budge. “You escaped.”

Illumi’s tone didn’t indicate any strong emotion one way or another. Still, to hear him say it only further frayed your destroyed nerves. You swallowed hard against your dry mouth, trying to calm your nausea.

“I was impressed that you managed to kill those butlers without your Nen, you must have been planning that for awhile,” he said, raising a hand towards you to accentuate the odd almost-praise.

Again, you didn’t, couldn’t, respond. Illumi lowered his hand. His voice lowered slightly, as well.

“However, your plan ended there, didn’t it? As an assassin, you shouldn’t have attempted to escape when the chance of success was so low. From the moment you escaped, your recapture was inevitable.”

Inevitable. Your eyes closed in defeated acceptance of that word, the bodies around you shuffling being the only sound aside from your hitching breaths.

“I know,” you whispered in your cracked voice, the air pushing up your throat and out your mouth tasting of blood.

“What did you hope to gain by running?” Illumi asked.

Gain?

Your eyes opened, meeting his in the dim light.  

“Kill me,” you responded. You’d spoken those words before, used them to beg and plead in the echoing emptiness of your own brain in the long stretches when Illumi left you alone in his prison, spoken them even knowing the cruelty that followed an unbidden request.

Kill you, because death was better than being used to breed Zoldyck children.

“Oh? So that’s what this is,” Illumi said in understanding. Casual, so casual it was cruel. “I’ve already told you I won’t.”

A heave of a breath, better called a despairing sob, worked its way through you, your eyes falling shut in defeat once more at that cold denial. All of this, and nothing. Nothing, nothing. You would be taken back to that room, or perhaps another, now, and have your Nen stolen from you by the runes on the floor, tied up and ruined, broken, betrayed, defiled, made inhuman in the shape of his desires.

“However,” Illumi continued, forcing your attention from your hopeless thoughts, “You still deserve to be punished for disobeying me.”

Your eyes opened, blurry with tears you hated to believe were from you actually crying. Maybe that word should have scared you, but instead you felt a strange sense of invulnerability to it. Punishment brought to mind whips and electricity and dark rooms and pain, agony.

In other words, basic assassin training. Your jaw clenched.

“That’s fine.”

Your nearly bratty remark made Illumi’s eyes narrow, ever so slightly. Then, he put his chin up, easily taking that minute bit of control away from you.

“Take off her clothes,” he said, meeting your eyes directly, but issuing the order to the people holding you.

Perhaps you could have managed disbelief in the first idea of what he intended that popped into your head, but you’d long shed yourself of that rationality when it came to Illumi. So, instead, you only felt dread and the absolute sickness of true disgust as stranger hands pushed and pulled and ripped fabric away from you to comply with that order.

“What are you doing?” you asked Illumi with a panicked anger, with fear, struggling hard against the bodies that swarmed around you, that kept you in place.

It was a silly question, considering he wasn’t doing anything, standing nearly completely still in front of you. His dark eyes watched you be stripped by the hands of dead men and women, impassively spectating as you struggled against a hold you couldn’t escape.

It was a silly question, because you  _knew_  what he was doing.

“There’s no reason to wait,” Illumi told you, “I’ll punish you here.”

He took a step towards you, his dark eyes not straying from yours as the Needleman got the very last of your clothes off, leaving you bare. The night air was cold against your clammy and flushed skin, and the dozens of hands and arms keeping you restrained felt horrifically intimate against your bare body.

“What if somebody comes?” you asked, a desperate attempt to find an escape as your eyes darted around, looking around the empty street and the dark sky and anywhere, anywhere but him.

“I’ll kill them,” Illumi said without hesitation.

You jumped when his hand raised to your flushed skin, trailing down to palm one of your breasts. Sensitive against being suddenly bared to the cooler night air, your nipples were already achingly hard, and you couldn’t help but gasp when he rolled the delicate skin between two fingers.

“Look at me,” he demanded lightly. Not a question, never, ever a question.

But you couldn’t. It was too much to feel the terrible grip of dozens of stranger hands on your thighs and hips and waist and arms, to feel the cool air of the night with the only defense being a crowd of bodies behind you and the one standing too close in front, to feel Illumi’s hand rolling your nipple idly, his eyes burning into every expression you were too exhausted to mask, it was too much.

You wanted to kill him and escape and ruin him like he had you, but you were too weak to even fight against what amounted to little more than regular humans and you couldn’t bear it, you couldn’t handle it because if he intended to fuck you like this, right here and now, you were terrified it would break you and what then? What would you be then?

“I hate you,” you told him, biting your lip against the pain when Illumi opted to grab your jaw and drag your eyes to meet his. Dark, swirling, endless.

His hand dropped, your eyes held trapped in place by his, to push down his pants, to adjust your legs in the grips of his Needlemen so he could hold one of your thighs and close the distance between you entirely.  

“I know.”

With only those casual and uncaring words to warn you, Illumi jerked you forward and roughly forced himself inside you.

You didn’t want to scream, to have that weak and awful sound echo around the street like you were nothing more than a whimpering victim assaulted in some back alley. For that matter, you didn’t want this, to be held by dead strangers and raped by the man you hated most in the world.

But, God, it didn’t mean anything that you didn’t want this. That the agony of his brutal entrance without any preparation made you cry out. Your escape amounted to nothing and so did your life because this  _surely_  was death.

“Stop, please,” you whimpered between clenched teeth, your eyes closed and aching and trembling core and thigh muscles straining against being forced into this so soon after your pointless race for escape.

“Hmm…” Illumi hummed in consideration, shallowly rolling his hips. Each movement was a reminder of the awful piercing pain, of your disgust and lack of desire, of your terror. Each movement pushed you back into the bodies behind you, the audience that held you still for this torture. “No.”

And then he began in earnest.

This wasn’t sex, or even really fucking. This was, as Illumi had said, punishment. The only kind that could affect you. The only kind that had you shaking and crying within moments, truly crying now with the inconsolable abandon of a child. The tears, heavy and hot, were soaking into Illumi’s shirt with the way your face had fallen against his shoulder, and your body was heaving sobs and gasps of air against his, and maybe you were grateful when he made the Needlemen release your arms so you could hold onto him because even though he was the one hurting you, fucking you dry and fast when your body was still reeling and exhausted and breaking down around you, he was the only stability you had.

The only truth, the only reality, the only one that meant anything. Your eventuality. The phantom that would haunt you no matter where you went and the murderer that wouldn’t kill you.

Needlemen were constantly forced to adjust their grip to accommodate Illumi’s violence, the disturbing discomfort of their shuffling hands keeping you from unfocusing. From mentally avoiding the pain and suffering of sensation and stimulation. The snap of their breaking bones added to the awful track of the overwhelming sounds of skin slapping and your gasping crying, from the slight vibrating and nearly silent groans you could hear in Illumi’s chest when you were pressed so close like this.

You were crumbling and cracking, choking on your inability to breath and the scent of his clothes and the taste of blood in your throat and mouth. And he was going to come.

Denied the life you wanted for yourself, denied success, denied dignity and choice, denied escape, and now, denied death. This was despair, not some dramatic display of an explosive emotion, but the broken pain of your trembling arms tightening around the shoulders of the man who hurt you, the man who was going to find his release amidst your agony and shame. It was your tears trailing off, becoming hiccuping and breathless dry sobs as you lost the will to sustain them. Despair felt like acceptance, and maybe it was, because fighting was impossible, so why not. Why try to fight the inevitable.

Could Illumi feel it? Was that final mental submission the thing he had been waiting for, the reason you felt his body tense, his hips painfully surging against yours as he pushed as deep inside of you as possible? With a strained groan that vibrated against you, a sound that could have been of pleasure or anger or exertion or anything,  _anything_ , Illumi came inside of you, masking this act of violence as the desire to create life by filling you with his cum.

Illumi’s hands were just as cold as that of the dead behind you, holding with a bruising strength onto your thigh and hip, marking you with his fingers as he remained inside you for a prolonged second that made a mockery of intimacy between lovers. But you didn’t reject it. Your own arms stayed locked in a death grip around his neck, clinging to his shoulders in a pitiful acceptance of the pain and his desire, your breath coming in short gasps.

Illumi laughed when he finally pulled out, the feeling making you whimper in reminder of the pain. It was a cheerfully breathless sound, at frightening odds with everything else that had happened. It was a smug laugh, one of victory.

Victory, in celebration of your defeat.

Victory, in satisfaction of your despair.


	85. Mafia Pariston Part 4

“Now that we’re engaged…” Pariston began casually once you were inside the apartment, after you’d gotten out of the heels you’d been tottering around in and he was hanging up his coat, “It makes much more sense for us to share a room, don’t you think?”

You froze.

“I wouldn’t want to force you into anything, but, well-” Pariston laughed lightly. “-You did say yes.”

The ring on your left hand, which you’d been trying so hard to ignore on the ride home, seemed to flash at his almost hesitant words. As if to match that sparkling glare, you could feel Pariston’s eyes burning into your back.

Pariston, as in, your fiance.

Although you wanted nothing more than to be alone, to try and process everything that had happened without the draining weight of his company, you felt under the spotlight of his eyes that you had no choice but to play along. Maybe after that he would stop teasing and leave you to contemplate your fate, to wallow in your own personal tragedy.

So, forcing your face into as detached of an expression as you could manage, you turned to face him.

“I thought,” you began hesitantly, carefully, willing yourself to keep it together, “Getting married was pretend.. Just… Just for show.”

Maybe anger, maybe humor, maybe cold, but the last reaction you expected to greet your words when your nervous eyes flitted up to his face was for Pariston to look utterly scandalized.

“Eh…? That’s not true at all, you’ve entirely misunderstood,” he told you with an exaggerated frown, his eyes taking on a cast of hurt, “If that were my only only reason to get married, there would have been no point to put in so much extra effort to make sure it would be  _you_ … Didn’t you think it was strange that I would allow you to stay here without asking for anything in return? Or that I barely touched you at all? Certainly you found that odd, while living alone with a man.”

“I… I guess,” you responded after a second beneath his expectant eyes, nervously shifting from foot to foot. Bringing up the confusing circumstances of your stay here only validated your fear that tonight was a turning point, that the strange and relative peace you’d been suffering in would finally crack. It forced you to ask a question, the question that had been on the tip of your tongue and the one you very suddenly didn’t want to voice. “Why?”

Pariston smiled.

“Well, as your future husband, I wanted to make you as comfortable as possible,” he said with a self important kindness, extending a hand towards you, “But now that you’ve said yes, there’s no reason for me to hold back anymore.”

There it was.

In a cruel mirror of the first time you met him, you began an unconscious half step away, moving with wide eyes and an instinctual fear pushing your movements. And, just like the last time, your breath caught when the energy shifted before you could even fully put down your weight, turning dark and frightening.

“You agreed to marry me,” Pariston reminded you lightly, sweetly, “You can’t escape me, Bambi. I own you now. You’re mine.”

Captured in his empty umber gaze, the sparkle somehow vanished and leaving his iris’s cold and hard,  you couldn’t move. You couldn’t tear your eyes away, you could scarcely think enough to respond to those frightening words.

Letting out a shuddering breath as if to expel those frightening words in a scramble for some clarity, you organized a single coherent thought to speak.

“But I don’t… I don’t want to,” you told Pariston in a wavering voice, feeling deplorable tears pinch the insides of your eyes. You had said yes, but certainly he knew that agreement was meaningless, a platitude given because you feared punishment.

You weren’t ready, not even by half.

But when Pariston’s smile dropped and he sighed, an overly dramatic and contemplative sound, you were surrounded by the cold and dreadful truth. When he took a step towards you, forcing you to have to look up to meet his gaze, you understood.

He, genuinely and truly, didn’t care.

“I could have taken you whenever I wanted, you know,” Pariston explained in a very matter-of-fact way, raising his hand to tuck a lock of hair back from your face while you stood frozen, “In fact, I could have had my way with you at any time. Even when we first met I considered pushing you against that alley wall to teach you the dangers of going out alone at night… And when I teased you the other day, I truly didn’t expect to want to take it so far… But aren’t you grateful that I didn’t?”

Pariston paused, his faux-serious frown turning up into a smile as his hand lowered to brush his soft fingers down your neck, across your collarbone and shoulder and then down your bare arm, landing at your left hand to raise it up. The ring sparkled in the light when he held it up.

“I waited until you said yes because I realized something when you caught my attention… Would you like to know what it is?”

No, you honestly and absolutely did  _not_  want to know.  
  
But, as if in some sort of horror induced trance, you nodded.

Pariston leaned down, tilting your chin up so his lips could brush the shell of your ear, so his whispered words would be crystal clear to you.

“As much fun as it is to break other people’s toys, I want to know what it’s like to break one of my own.”

Chills raised up and down your spine, across your entire body, invited both by the sensation of his warm breath tickling the fine hairs around your ear and by the words themselves. Terrible, terrible words, spoken with a candy sweet tone you could nearly mistake as something intimate.

And then Pariston pulled back, not giving you even a second to actually process what he had just told you. His right hand buried itself in your hair, the other dropping your hand to wrap around your waist. In the second before the electric touch of his soft lips to your own, you got one last fleeting look at his eyes. They were no longer empty. No, in that transient recognition of emotion, you saw excitement.

But, even with that image trapped in your mind, your eyes fluttered shut, following the cliche set by dozens, hundreds, thousands, of love songs.

Unconventional and horrifying as it was, there was a sick tradition to this kiss.

It was not like the one in the restaurant, which was romantic and picture perfect for the audience and set scene. This kiss, this now, alone in his apartment while you were caught blinded by his words, wasn’t anything you recognized from either your own limited experience or those you had seen on TV or in the spare girly magazines and books you’d managed to get your hands on.

Pariston kissed you, now, in a way that took your breath away. Stole the air directly from your lungs as his hand guided your head to a tilt for better access, the other exploring your body over the cover of the dress. It wasn’t your dress, some part of your mind felt overly aware of, but one he had bought and had fitted specifically for you.

It was  _his_  dress that covered your body, his jewelry that sat heavily on your neck, ears, and finger, his apartment that you were trapped within, and his Bambi that he was kissing.

It was in Pariston’s his arms that you, dizzy and breathless and mentally whirling, melted.

You were so enthralled, so dazed, by the way he kissed you, by the combination of electricity and skin crawling discomfort in the way he was touching you, that you didn’t even think to struggle when Pariston began pushing you in the direction of the rooms.

There was a more more terrifying thought, too, that you didn’t care to fight because there was something about his desire that pleased a deep and unholy part of yourself.

Either way, it was simpler to allow his teeth to nip at your bottom lip so you would allow his tongue entrance to your mouth, easier to not resist as he helped you up the single step platform on the way to the bedroom, and utterly uncomplicated to raise your chin to the prompting pull of your hair when his mouth sought the lower territory of your jaw and neck.

Everything was so much, too much, to your overwrought mind, so overwhelming, but to go along with him meant not having to complicate it with thought and with the exhausting struggle to convince him to stop. To allow him to leave marks on the sensitive skin on your neck, having removed and discarded your borrowed necklace at some point after entering his room, was better than to deny that it, on some level, felt nice.

Good, even if it hurt, even if it filled you with the inky black tar of guilt and shame.

Having left a trail of reddened marks down your neck, Pariston’s mouth raised to meet yours once again. You realized that your hands were buried in his soft and messy hair, the strands sliding between your fingers, then promptly forgot when he bit your bottom lip particularly hard. It gave you a filthy feeling, something hot and gooey, but one your scattered brain didn’t reject as it normally might have.

His hand pulled from your hair to join the other, both of them dropping to your back. With the sound of a zipper, your dress fell, pooling at your feet. The strapless bra beneath was easily unclasped and dropped to join the fabric a second later under Pariston’s quick fingers.

Whatever protest you might have given to being bared, your skin tingling and vulnerable now that it was freed from the tight confines of bodice and bra, was lost in a gasp of surprise when he guided you to step out from the fabric. It made you trip, practically pushed into falling onto your back on the rich bedspread in only your silky underwear.

The cold air and distance from his helpfully distracting hands and mouth was jarring. It gave you time to think, to realize the situation you’d landed yourself in. But disgust and shame came too late, and your attempts to regain modesty were a futile effort when you had so easily allowed him to seduce you here in the first place.

You thought it would be easier this way, before, but now it was all hitting you at once, hitting you  _hard_. You felt nauseous, like you were drowning, like you were trapped without any control or stability. Scrambling, scared, sick. 

“Pariston, I don’t want-” you began in a choked voice, flushed and shaking and frightened in a way that filled your veins with icy dread, but he silenced your words by kneeling over you, pressing his lips to yours.

Your shaking hands pressed against his chest, but you didn’t have the strength to push him away. Perhaps feeling how tense you had become, he pulled away with a benevolent expression, caressing your face softly.

“No, no, Bambi… Just relax…” Pariston chided you in a warm voice.

It could have been the use of that name, or maybe his kinder tone and expression, or nothing more than your deep seated desire to please, but your body slackened a bit in response to that command. 

Pariston was quick to take advantage of that, and you couldn’t help but arch into the electric feeling when his soft fingertips closed around one of your nipples, teasing the sensitive skin with a casually clever touch.

“That’s right!” he said with a muted joy and boyish smile, “You can trust me.”

Whatever response you might have had to those unnerving words was lost, lost in your messy thoughts of confused discord when his mouth dropped once more to continue the trail of kiss and bite marks leading down your neck, his fingers continuing to play the line of pleasure pain in the way they pinched and massaged your sensitive nipples.

When Paristons lips replaced those fingers, it made your entire body jolt, the warm and wet sensation of his mouth jarringly different from the touch of his skin. It distracted you enough for his fingers to lower, sliding across your fluttering stomach to dip past the waistband of your panties without your objection, until you realized what he was doing.

“No…” you protested in a breathless voice, tensing up and reaching down to stop his hand.

All you could think of was his finger, stretching and dry as he forced it into you. Of the pain and shame in his study. Pariston hummed, his teeth scraping against the skin as he began to suck  _hard_ on your nipple, just like he had your neck. This time, it actually did hurt.

The mewling noise that left your mouth was uncontrollable and pitched high in surprised pleasure-pain, your hands unconsciously flying up to pull on his messy hair rather than to try and stop his hand.

At the same time, you came to the understanding that this wasn’t like it had been in his study, where you were tense and scared and filled with only with a vulgar feeling of disgust.

Aside from the similarities in mentality, this time your body was far more attuned to his desires. Another thing you trusted, this time your own self, had betrayed you.

“My, my, my,” Pariston said after pulling away from your now-sore nipple, the breath of his words dancing across your sensitive and wet skin, raising chills across the plains of your fluttering chest and stomach, “What’s this?”

Another mewling whimper left your mouth, a defeated and pathetic sound, when his long middle finger dipped down to drag a trail of your wet arousal up to your swollen clit. The feeling, the vile and intoxicating stimulation, made you shudder, your hips jumping against his hand.

“Please stop,” you begged quietly, your hands going back down to hold his wrist, to try and pull his hand away, but Pariston didn’t budge.

Instead, he raised his head with a satisfied smile, looking you in the eye while his finger began to rub your clit slowly, teasingly, an action made smooth by the wetness that coated the digit. You closed your eyes with a stifled groan of unhappiness, able to bear to shame of his eyes on yours, your chest heaving as you teetered on a precipice between the ignorance of pleasure and a full scale breakdown.

“Please, I don’t… I don’t want this.”

“Oh?” he asked in confusion.

Then, to your surprise, Pariston did stop, making your eyes pop open. That only allowed you to see the lewd sight of him forcefully pushing your underwear off your hips, pulling your legs up so he could remove your of your last form of defense. When you were fully naked, he settled your legs on either side of him, exposing you entirely.

“Is that really true?” Pariston asked with a purse of concern as his hand slid back up between your legs, easily pushing away your attempts to struggle, “Or…Are you lying again? I would have hoped you learned your lesson last time… I’d really hate to have to punish you now, when you’re being so good.”

“I’m not,” you told him in a choked whisper, your chest heaving with your gasping breaths and body constantly shifting in your conflicting need to fight and fear of resisting. When his hand reached the apex of your thighs, you went stiff, your thighs attempting to clench only to be roughly pried apart.

“Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?” Pariston asked sweetly, his fingers seeking out to tease your entrance, highlighting how aroused you were with the awful wet sound it created.

“I-” your answer was cut short when he pushed a finger into you, moving slowly against the minimal resistance offered by your body’s arousal. It didn’t hurt like before, it didn’t hurt almost at all. Rather, the feeling made you gasp, your eyes squeezing shut and teeth burying themselves in your bottom lip.  

“Was that so really so bad?” Pariston asked, leaning closer over you so his words could splay warm and airy against your skin, the sensation adding another layer to the dozens that fought conflictingly in your mind.

Your breathing was harsh and fast, heart pounding in the confines of your ribcage, but your lips still parted to answer. At that moment, however, he pulled his finger back out, curling it against your inner walls and erasing all other thoughts from your brain. It made you moan, filling you with a hot feeling that could only be called pleasure. Deplorable and disgusting, but utterly delightful and delicious.

More.

Stop.

“Please,” the whispered word left your mouth in a breathless gasp, your eyes shut and mind warring, shame burning in your face and liquid heat pooling in your core. Which were you asking for? What was the distinction?

“Yes… That’s it,” Pariston encouraged you in a drawn out way, a smile you had your eyes closed to in his tone.

This time, instead of just one, Pariston pushed two of his fingers into you, drawing an embarrassingly needy moan from you. There was a feeling of completion in being filled like this, something you hadn’t known you were missing until you felt it in this way. Something hot and sticky and tense. Both of his fingers curled again as he retracted them, brushing against that sensitive spot inside of you with more surety.

Pariston’s other hand dropped between your legs, those fingers finding your swollen clit. The sudden and striking pleasure of that action in conjunction with his fingers thrusting back into you with a slight more roughness had your back bowing, your legs bending and toes curling. You muffled the helpless moan by turning your head, pushing your fist against your mouth.

“You won’t let me hear you?” Pariston asked in a hurt voice, his hands falling still.

It was enough to make you want to cry, the lack of stimulation and his cruelty in forcing you to put on some twisted show. You didn’t want him to see your expression or your body, or hear you moan. You didn’t want him to touch you but now that he had started you couldn’t force yourself to want him to stop.

Pariston’s fingers pushed into you without warning, while you were still caught in the confusion of despair. The movement was accentuated by the way he began rubbing your clit again, with more focused purpose, and you couldn’t  _help_  but throw your head back, crying out for him because the rush of heat and pleasure beneath his skilled fingers was overbearing and undeniable. Enough to throw rationality and reason to the wind as you lost yourself in the sensation.

“My, my, you’re  _very_  sensitive, aren’t you?” Pariston asked, his delight clear, although you didn’t dare open your eyes to check if he was smiling, “It’s a good thing I’m here to take care of you, don’t you think? It’s no good to allow these sort of things to go untended to, you know.”

It was almost impossible to focus as you felt your body tense and strain as it reached to find fulfillment in the growing heat in your core. The build was simultaneously one of the most wonderful things you had ever felt and the most dissatisfying, you were impatient for it. It made it easy to tune out Pariston’s words, to separate yourself in some way from the situation in favor of the stimulation.

“You’re very eager, Bambi,” Pariston cooed, even the sound of his voice ringing sensuality in your bliss intoxicated mind, “That’s fine… After all, this is a reward.”

His fingers quirked in a different way, the pattern shifting and blinding you with the stimulus.

“That- Ah-I- Don’t st-Ah-” your nonsensical words broke off into gasping moans, although you doubted they had been coherent enough to understand in the first place.

“Like this?” Pariston asked with a casually playful voice, although it was clear that he was pleased. You liked that, you truly did.   
  
Your hips pushed into the feeling, into the desire struck up by his voice. Your legs spread and back arched in a final display of depraved need, Pariston’s fingers thrust and curled into you, building that final bit of pressure up to its very peak until it snapped. Until your entire body tensed and surged, your mouth open in a silent cry as the heat filled your body, encouraged by his continued movements.

Release buzzed beneath his fingers and in your mind, filling you with a heat that burned your skin with a fever flush, pushing you for a few wonderful moments into a state of complete satisfaction.

Pariston pulled away as soon as the pleasure had fallen into a shivering sort of wake, moving up your body to press his lips up your neck, your jaw, to your lips.

Kissing you, touching you, disorienting you. 

Undoing his belt. 

It was on an instinctual basis that that sound made you react, the spell of bliss in your mind breaking off with a confused and ugly sense of cold. When you awkwardly and clumsily scrambled back, Pariston, his shirt mostly unbuttoned and belt discarded, sat up, looking down at you with a slightly confused pout of an expression.

“I don’t want to go all the… Please…” you begged in an unconvincing and gasping voice, looking up at him with wide, pleading eyes, still flushed and spinning in the wake of your orgasm.  

“You’re still refusing?” Pariston asked with a disappointed frown.

Still, he meant, after he’d gotten you off so nicely, touching you selflessly. You made yourself push down the guilt his words and expression made you feel, nodding with all the willpower you could manage while still trembling and off balance.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to force you…” Pariston mused, then he raised his hand, explaining, “But, you know, I did make you come, isn’t it only fair of you to return the favor?”

Pariston’s question, and the casual way he spoke of what had just happened, made your chest constrict, your arms tightening around your ribcage in an attempt to remain steady. When he said it like that, it didn’t matter that you hadn’t wanted it. You had still allowed him to touch you and gotten off, hadn’t you?

There was no escape from this.

“No, no, don’t look so scared!” Pariston chastised you playfully, his closed-eyed smile unfaltering and hands waving in a mock attempt to soothe you, “If you want to wait, that’s fine.” His eyes opened, alight with something frightening when they met yours. “I don’t mind if you use your mouth, instead.”

For a moment, just a fraction of one, you were confused. You understood what that look he wore meant, and the implication of his tone, but not the word choice itself.  

“My…. Mouth…” you repeated uncertainly. But, as soon as the words were out, comprehension hit you with a fresh flush of scarlet, dawning on you with a strangely juvenile embarrassment because you  _knew_ what a blowjob was. Girls in your classes had spoken about the act, discussed technique and how much boys liked it, some girls speaking positively and others negatively. It wasn’t as if you were entirely naive.

Not entirely.

No, you understood exactly enough to be painfully aware of how ill-prepared you were for this situation, how far you were out of your depth.

That sense of drowning returned, weighed down even further by the disorientation of the phantom pleasure he’d left between your thighs and the sensitized heat of your body.

For a drawn out sliver of silence, you waited, hoped that Pariston would give you an easy out and break the silence. Instead, he watched you squirm, undoubtedly enjoying your suspended discomfort in the growing awkwardness.

You cleared your swollen throat, averting your eyes from his to look at the fancy bedspread, focusing entirely on the embroidered pattern.

“I don’t…”

The first attempt you made at a coherent answer trailed off, getting stuck in your throat as your inability to cope with it all caught up to you and made you choke.

There were other things, too, nerves and shame and disgust and despair and just about every emotion you had ever felt clamoring and fighting to be given your attention as you tried to think of a response. After a stretch of that turmoil and with a numb finality, words organized in your mind, your eyes kept averted as you admitted with a quiet simplicity,

“I don’t know how.”

As soon as you spoke, you had the dreadful expectation for Pariston to laugh and mock you for that admission, waiting for the sound with your breath held.

But he didn’t.

“Of course not,” Pariston said instead, speaking with what you could almost mistake as an air of gentle patience, “I wouldn’t expect you to know how to please a man already. Actually, I’m happy to be your mentor!” He paused, his voice lowering and smile growing sharper. “It really is better this way. The only men a girl should ever know how to please are her father and her husband… Isn’t that right, Bambi?”  

You wanted to scream, truly. Scream, because when you looked up and met Pariston’s pitiless eyes, all you saw was his glee in your torment, in making that sickening comparison yet again. The sound built up in you chest, helpless and angry and trapped and terrified, but it fizzled out before being voiced, dying in the void of oxygen his words had stolen from your lungs.

In its wake, you felt the awful cold of resignation.  

There wasn’t any real choice, at least like this you could spare yourself being taken, fully taken by him, one more night. You licked your lips, blinking fast to avoid crying.

“Yes,” you agreed hoarsely, casting your eyes down.

“Good, so you do understand!” Pariston exclaimed, “Now, stand up.”

With only a fraction of the hesitance you truly felt, you obeyed, keeping your shoulders curled and arms up to protectively cover your chest as you slid off the bed. Pariston was already getting out of his clothes, stripping down completely and draping them over the back of the chair behind him, before sitting on the edge of the bed.

There was no way you could do this. That though rose up into your head like the dizzy fizz of soda bubbles, making you sway on your unsteady legs as you purposefully avoided looking at him.

“Now get on your knees,” Pariston ordered in a sugar sweet tone.

The sound of his voice drove away that errant thought of denial, and you woodenly knelt down between his spread thighs, your head bowed to hide your face. You didn’t want to see him, see his eyes or his smile or his body or anything because you didn’t want this to be real. Any of this. You wanted to wake up, to open your eyes to your old reality and forget this nightmare.

You wished for that so badly, squeezing your eyes shut to this frightening situation as you willed it with every fiber of your being to be false, and Pariston wrenched that final wish from you with something so simple as his touch, his fingers reaching out to brush through your hair.

“How nice… You really are an obedient girl,” he cooed happily.

The praise made you shiver, swallowing hard against the tears you didn’t know when you had begun shedding. While his hand continued to pet your hair with a nearly sentimental touch, in the very corner of your vision you could see the other absently stroking himself. His dick. You knew, generally, what male genitalia looked like. Just like how you knew, generally, how it would be to give a blowjob.

As in, the reality of both was absolutely one of the most daunting and terrifying things you had ever faced.

“Are you nervous?” Pariston asked you, his voice warm with the knowing joy he took from your anguish, “I know you chose to do this, but if you change your mind, there are always other things we can do. I wouldn’t mind.”

His mention of ‘other things’ made your thighs tense, pressing together so firmly the muscles trembled. Of course, that only reminded you of the ghostly feeling of his touch, of the pleasure you’d taken in it.

But there was a difference between his fingers and true coupling between partners. That act was mean to be special, saved for an occasion of passion and intimacy. Of love.

Love. What an awful word.

You blinked hard, finally daring to look up at Pariston, facing him from your place between his legs. Pale and slim, with just the right amount of muscle definition, it didn’t really surprise you that he’d have a nice body. There wasn’t any doubt that he was attractive, disturbingly so.  

The more attention-grabbing aspect of his nudity, however, was directly in front of your face. Pariston’s hand was wrapped around the shaft of his cock with a casual comfort that completely went against your discomfort and uncertainty in the situation. No matter what ‘general’ understanding you thought you had, the concept of fitting him into your mouth seemed utterly impossible.

“Here, give me your hand,” Pariston instructed you with a muted amusement. You swallowed hard, raising your hand so he could put it where his had been, wrapping your fingers around the soft and shockingly warm shaft, “Oh, you are nervous,” he said in response to the way your hand was trembling, his voice disconcertingly happy about the fact, “It’s very cute, but it might be easier if you relax.”

You nodded, unable to meet his eyes and very definitely unable to relax. Pariston laughed.

“Poor little thing.” He didn’t sound pitying in the slightest. “Hmm, to start with, why don’t you use your tongue. I’d hate to overwhelm you too much right away.”

“What?” you asked, confused about what he meant, your voice hushed to avoid the fact that it would tremble at any higher volume.

“Lick me, Bambi,” Pariston cooed, an uncomfortable order disguised by the sweetness of his tone. You stiffened, a burst of uncertain insecurity hitting you hard, but you nodded.

Under the weight of his stare, you moved close until you could tentatively lick the blushed head of his dick. The skin was soft beneath your tongue, not like you had expected. Nervously, you continued, going underneath to move towards were your hand was wrapped at the base. Pariston hummed in approval, giving you enough confidence to run the flat of your tongue directly up the paler skin of the shaft. It was soft and warm, with faint veins running beneath the skin. You were rewarded with a sharp inhale above you.

For reasons you didn’t dare think of, that sound motivated you to try more.

Pariston’s reactions weren’t given freely, making you scared at any moment he’d reprimand you for doing it wrong. However, when you reached a spot where the shaft met the head, your tongue running experimentally over that ridge, his hand fisted suddenly in your hair, a breathless sort of moan leaving his mouth. It surprised you, the sound lacking the control you had gotten accustomed to with Pariston.

“Open your mouth,” he ordered you lowly, his voice devoid of tone. Frightening. You didn’t question him, not even daring to look up and see what expression might match  _that_ voice.

Pariston pushed into your mouth, and then fear was cast away as you became more concerned with keeping your jaw and throat relaxed so your body didn’t jerk away from the unfamiliar sensation. Using the hand in your hair, he pulled you back slightly, guiding the hand you had wrapped around his dick to collect the saliva you’d left behind and drag it down.

You had a moment of understanding, because you knew, through various crude and illicit sources, how men masturbated. Generally. It was enough for you to understand that, with all your extra saliva easing your way, you needed to move your hand back and forth. It matched with the way he pulled your head back down, a sort of bobbing motion.

“Oh?” Pariston asked in a lighter tone at your first tentative attempt to do both, reverted back to his regular way of speaking, “Who taught you this?”

He paused, having to force you to continue when you stopped moving at the implication of those words, wanting to pull off and explain yourself. Instead you nearly choked, having to remind yourself to relax all over again as you tried to work a steady rhythm with your hand and mouth. Pariston laughed, a breathless sound.

“Or…. It could be that you were just born to be a slut, that would explain why you would be so willing to let me touch you after everything I’ve done to you.”

His hands in your hair kept you from pulling off, leaving you no choice but to try and ignore his words as you continued to try and find a steady rhythm you could sustain. It filled the room with awful wet sucking sounds, making a mess of saliva.  

“But… You’re not very good at this yet,” Pariston stopped you with a dissatisfied sigh, letting go of your hair and pulling out of your mouth with a slick pop.

You felt a rush of panic at that tone, at his displeasure, looking up at him with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry…” you apologized.

“It’s okay,” Pariston soothed you, patting your head, “There’s something else you can do… Although you might not like it.”

“I’ll do it,” you said without stopping to consider your words.

Pariston smiled.

“In that case.. Put your hands on your knees,” he instructed. 

You complied, your saliva slick hands falling to rest against your bare knees. 

“Now,” Pariston said, speaking with an exaggerated type of lecturing concern that didn’t at all match the situation, “Try your best not to choke. If you do… I’m sure I could find a way to forgive you.”

You nodded.

He grabbed you by your hair, pushing the tip of his dick back to your lips.

“Open your mouth, Bambi.”

And you did.

For a brief moment, you sort of understood what was about to happen and could believe wholeheartedly that you could get through it.

Then he pushed himself into your mouth, pulling you down until he was fully lodged all the way in your throat, making you unable to breath. It was all you could do to ignore your gag reflex, and still Pariston held you there, keeping you in place while you grew increasingly more frantic, choking and suppressing the urge to fight and struggle, your hands twitching in their place on your knees as you forced them to stay put.

When you finally were at your limit, he allowed you to pull back, to get in a few lungfuls of gasping breath, before pulling you forward once more. It was the same, he held you in place until you felt scared that you were going to suffocate, trying to force yourself to not struggle or fight him with the increasingly intangible goal of saving yourself. Maybe you would have given in to that panicked and terrified animalistic response, but then he spoke.

“How nice,” Pariston said sweetly, letting you off to breathe again, “You’re doing very good.”

And maybe you should have felt shame in how much the praise affected you, but in that moment, to your oxygen deprived brain, those words were almost drug-like.

So, you didn’t fight when Pariston pulled you back forward. You clenched your fists and forced yourself not to panic or choke and when he let you off you were  _grateful_  to breath in gasping lungfuls of air.

You didn’t know how many times he repeated the process, but with each pass you knew he was moving faster, building to a steady and fast pace of thrusting into your mouth. Using you, making a mess of saliva and forcing your mouth open until your jaw ached, until your scalp burned from the grip he had in your hair.

And still, still, you didn’t fight. Your only thoughts were focusing on not choking, on keeping your fists tight on your knees and attempting to breath where you could. You didn’t fight because you couldn’t, because all you could think of was getting through this. Because when he moaned, a breathy and pleased sound, it made your body shiver. Because when he muttered your name, your real name, your thighs clenched for a reason other than fear.

If you weren’t so preoccupied, you might have enjoyed Pariston’s temporary lapse in control as he used you. The idea of it hung at the very edges of your understanding, but it was far overshadowed by the attention you had to pay to keep yourself in check. To enduring.

You had no idea how long you had been on your knees, time was a meaningless stretch of nothing in your dazed brain. The only clue you had as to whether or not Pariston was getting close was in the sounds he was making above you, in the speed of which he was thrusting into your mouth. Maybe he was a bit more vocal, his pace becoming even more rough and cruel.

You wanted it to be over, the harshness of his increasingly rapid movements pulling you from that haze of detached acceptance with the attack of discomfort. It was making you more aware of the mess of saliva and the pain of your jaw and stiffness of your legs.

Hold on. Your fists were tight, enough to hurt your thumbs with the way you held them. Hold on. Your eyes were squeezed shut, but tears found their ways past regardless. Hold on. You made a noise, a sound of unhappiness and pain. Of fear.

And that was it.

Pariston pulled out of your mouth at the last second, keeping you in place with one hand entangled in your hair while the other finished himself off with a raspy groan.

You attempted to jerk away in panic when you felt the first burst of ropey cum on your skin, but he held you still with his fistfull of your hair. Pariston’s release was warm and sticky when it hit your face, your chest. It mixed with the saliva and tears dripping from your chin in a wet mess, rendering you absolutely filthy. Disgusting, really, burning in breathless humiliation.

Braced against your knees, your hands remained clenched, thumbs tucked inside your fists as you did your best to get through it. To be good for him while your mind still spun with the strange daze and did its best to recover from that limited oxygen supply.  

You hoped that would be it; that had to be it. You had done what he asked, hadn’t you? Yet Pariston didn’t let you go, pressing the silky slick head of his dick to your lips once more. With a natural and mindless sort of fear of what he wanted, you struggled to turn your head from that insistent prompting, whimpering when his hand only tightened in your hair to keep you in place.

“Won’t you clean up your mess?” Pariston asked sweetly, sounding slightly confused at your inability to comply.

You let out a heaving and hitching breath, swallowing hard against the excess saliva in your mouth while trying to orient yourself enough to do as he wanted. This had to be it, and then you would be done. And then he would leave you alone.

Peeking your eyes open the slightest amount, your mascara and tear coated lashes providing a strangely sultry view of the disturbingly lewd image in front of you, you did as he said, using your tongue to clean the red-flushed tip of his cock. The taste was bitter and salty, but that part hardly registered when compared to everything else. The action made Pariston hum, a low sound that made your spine tingle.

“You really do make such a pretty little slut,” he told you, finally allowing your scalp some rest, his words drawing your wide and hurt gaze up to his.

At first, you intended to object to that cruel assessment, but something about his expression made you stop. Pariston was smiling, of course he was smiling. His cheeks were flushed pink, his expression one that you could only call excited. He looked lustful. He looked wild. He looked dangerous.

“You know… Your doe eyes can’t fool me,” he said teasingly, “In fact, when you look at me like that, it only makes the truth more clear to me.”

You blinked tears, sniffing in a way that struck even you as distinctly pitiful.

“What truth?” you asked quietly, coldly entranced by the seductive horror or his words, of his gaze. Trapped by the hand still tangled in your hair.

Pariston’s eyes flashed.

“Would you like to see? I’d be happy to show you.”

Your throat worked hard to swallow your apprehension.

“See what?” The fear in your quiet voice was clear, but all it did was make his smile grow.

Without answering, Pariston stood up, using his hold on your hair to get you to scramble along the floor with a pained objection until he dropped you in front of the floor length mirror, where you collapsed clumsily. Terrified and reeling from the pain on your scalp and this frightening shift in attitude, you worked to get your numb legs beneath you, wanting, needing to get away from Pariston.

“No, stuh-op!” you cried in teary and panicked voice when Pariston dropped to the floor behind you and pulled you up on your knees, pressing your back tight to his front, holding you facing the mirror so you could see yourself in the reflection.

Naked and flushed, your hair a mess and skin covered in bite marks and his cum, makeup tears running down your cheeks that only served to make your face look that much more debauched, you looked every bit the slut he said you were. Dirty, filthy, disgusting, you struggled hard against his hold, looking away from the gold framed image of yourself with a fresh wave of despair washing over you.

“You said I only had to… You came,” you got out with panicked and pleading misery, confused, overworked, sickened, and horrified of the fact that he was clearly hard, his erection pressing against your bare ass.

“Look at yourself, Bambi,” Pariston cooed into your ear, his grip tightening around you, one hand raising to hold your face directly towards your reflection, “You look like you want to be ruined, don’t you think?” His voice dropped low, the arms holding you suddenly releasing, roughly shoving you down onto your hands and knees. “Now… Be a good girl for me.”

Forced down violently to the floor, your hands splayed flat against the floor to catch yourself. Your mind was bursting and dazed, panicking with fear and a foolish sense of betrayal, but your eyes still found focus on the engagement ring weighing down your finger. Huge and sparkling and far too distracting, for a moment you were mesmerized by the way it caught the light, by the things it signified and the truth it made real.

But then Pariston was pushing your legs apart a little further and lining himself up, the reality of the smooth slide of his dick against your spread folds hitting you with a hyperreal and crisp intensity of sensation. You might have been begging, pushing yourself against the oppressive weight of his hand on your back, or perhaps your despair was merely expressed in helpless tears. It didn’t matter, really, because it all cut off in a wordless shriek when he pushed in.

The thin amounts of wetness lingering between your legs and the remaining saliva from your messy blowjob wasn’t nearly enough lubrication to make it easy when he pushed himself all the way into you, or to relieve the pain. You had thought his finger hurt, that day in his study, but this was worse. Pinching and tearing and aching, the cruelty of the feeling was enough to make stars burst behind your eyes.

“You said… You said you wouldn’t if I…” you could hardly get the words out through your heavy and sob-laiden breathing, and certainly couldn’t say what you had done.  

“Eh…” Pariston responded, a breathless laugh in his tone as he rocked his hips experimentally, making your shaking body tense with pain, “Did I?”

One of his hands left your hip, reaching down to wrap around your throat, forcing your back into a dramatic arch so you could meet his eyes in the mirror. So you could watch the manic lust swirl in his eyes as he pulled out to roughly thrust back into you, slightly choking you against the hand at your throat before you could get your bearings to stabilize your arms again. It was disgusting. It was cruel. It was terrible. It made Pariston smile, sparkling, gleaming, shining in the golden light of his room.

“I believe I said that I was fine if you wanted to wait,” he told you knowingly, “I never said how long.”

Being able to see yourself in the mirror meant you to could see the despairing misery of your expression darken with anger and hate. With disgust. It also meant you could see Pariston’s delighted reaction to that change.

“I hate you,” you said, repeating the words from earlier that night, from an entire lifetime ago. Pariston accentuated your useless statement with another hard thrust that made you cry out, but you didn’t stop, fresh tears that would seemingly never end welling in your eyes. “I hate you!”

“That’s good… I’m glad.” Pariston drew out the words happily, his eyes were burning glee as he picked up the pace. There was no time to adjust or to allow you to orient yourself, Pariston was already desperate in his excited madness, driven by lustful abandon. Unperturbed by your pained cries, his thrusts became more bold, his hand around your neck keeping you up and facing him so you could watch yourself be ruined, halfway choking you as your body revolted against the pain.

But still, still!

“I hate you!” you repeated in as loud of a voice as you could manage, despair so thick in your breathless words they might as well have been steeped in the awful feeling.

“I  _like_  that,” Pariston groaned, your words only adding to his mania. He was rough and uncaring, shoving your hands and knees into the floor and pounding against you with the rapid slapping sounds of skin against skin filling the room.

In a stark contradiction of the pain of what he was doing, Paristons other hand made its way underneath your body, finding your clit above where he was roughly fucking into you, his fingers rubbing against it with a knowing focus.

You didn’t want it, not in conjunction with his abuse, not at all.

But you were sensitized, your entire body alight with nerves and pain and something shivering and electric.

But, despite the pain, your body already knew how to find pleasure in his touch.

It was too much, the sensation and the cruelty and his happiness in your emotional pain. It wasn’t hate you felt. It was misery, it was agony, it was terror. You were certain you would tremble to pieces if he continued, if he didn’t stop soon.

“Stop… Puh.. Please,” you cried, begged, really, all strength gone from your voice.

“If you’re going to beg, Bambi,” Pariston said, his voice thick with the strain of pleasure and exertion, “I’m sure you can remember how to ask  _nicely_.”

With the overwhelming amount of sensory information and the crumbling, breaking, cracking of your mind, it didn’t click at first, but it wasn’t as if you’d forget what ‘nicely’ meant so quickly. In all likelihood, you’d never forget.

Oh, you were disgusted and despairing, but, God, you were desperate.

“Please…. Daddy, st-” you got out, the words cutting off with an awful whine of a sound because rather than stopping, Pariston’s fingers only rubbed in a more focused way against your clit. Being fucked wasn’t hurting like it had, either, the violence had forced your body into some sickening sense of submission, into easing his way so you could almost take pleasure in the defilement, in the way it built upon that tense coil of heat within you.

You wanted to scream, you wanted to die, and instead you  _moaned_.

“That’s it…” Pariston said, his voice low and thick and smooth.

You didn’t expect it, but he suddenly released your neck, pushing you to the floor so you couldn’t see the mirror, so your cheek was pressed roughly into the floor while he forcefully got you off, stoking that fire of pleasure to a rupture.

It was too quick, too much at once, for your orgasm to be truly overwhelmingly delightful. There was too much pain, too much suffering and disgust, but it still overtook your mind for that momentary blaze of madness, your body rocking into Pariston’s fingers and his cock as he chased his own pleasure.

“Say.. It.. Again,” Pariston demanded, his voice low and almost frightening to your white reeling brain. Again, you knew again, what it was. Again.

“Daddy,” you gasped out, the hatred you felt for yourself with the word dulled by the hazy fog in your mind, “Daddy, ple-”

You didn’t finish that word as Pariston slammed himself into you in a series of unbearably violent thrusts, driving deep and hard with each one, both his hands on your hips to keep you in place for him. The sound he made was little more than a growl, a groan that was unrecognizable compared to his usual light and friendly way of speaking.

When it was over, Pariston spared you no sentimentality, pulling out and letting you collapse carelessly on your side. The room was silent save for the heaviness of both your breathing and the pathetic crying you couldn’t stifle. Your body hurt, everything, everything, it all hurt.

You blinked tears that fell to the floor, your eyes unfocused as they stared blankly at the corner of the room you’d fallen facing. You could have stayed there forever, floating in that pain, in your misery. Content to your suffering because you were complicit in it, weren’t you? How could you play victim, now, trembling with the shocks of the pleasure you’d taken in your violation?

The only thing you could really wish, right then, is that it had rained that night. That you wouldn’t have gone for that walk. That you had been asleep in your bed, or studying late. Or that you had taken a different route or broken your leg or simply died, been gone and buried long before you ever met Pariston Hill.  

But you hadn’t.

“Oh dear, you really are a mess,” Pariston said in a breathless but sated voice.

You didn’t answer, staring, empty, numb, floating.

“Bambi?” Pariston asked, concerned, coming into your eye line with a pouty frown. “Are you upset with me?”

When his hand smoothed your sweaty and messy hair down, you didn’t flinch. Surely no amount of violence or his particular brand of teasing could have gotten you from the clutches of safe apathy.

But, it was just as he said. There was no way for you to escape from him.

When Pariston did the last thing you expected, pulling you up and into his arms, holding you despite how much of a mess you were in an embrace that could only be called tender, it ripped you from that last vestige of hope that you could be free. Miserably, pathetically, childishly, you allowed him to hold you while you cried in the hapless and inconsolable way of a child. And cruelly, kindly, maliciously, Pariston allowed it.


	86. Yandere Killua - Killua POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey sorry about not posting and coming back with only two chapters, i've been really blocked lately and so i haven't been writing very much... hopefully that's coming to end! 
> 
> Here was the prompt: Yandere killua being obsessed with how sweet his crush tastes and smells and how soft their skin and hair feel, but not nessesarly sexual way, like they just fill up his senses and he just longs for these things because he experienced them once and cant get them out of his head. (I suck at explaining so if this doesn't make sense then feel free to inturprite this however you like, as long as it's more yandere killua and you wrote it then thats all I care about)
> 
> Killua is, as always, aged up

Killua would never consider why he paid so much attention to you, or why he committed so many details about you to memory (he knew, on some level  _of course_  he knew), but he could say that he had admired your smile before. In the time you’d been working together, he had appreciated the way your eyes lit up when you teased or played around, the way your lips turned up and the sound of your laugh (it was an unspoken fact within his mind that the feeling of warmth the memories brought was irrelevant).

There was more, too. Killua had seen your expression grim with a dark and serious look, sharp when you were studying or thinking hard about something. He’d seen you soft, worried, upset, and caring. Although Killua couldn’t (didn’t dare) recall the exact reason for his specific attention, in the weeks that he had known you, he’d seen and could remember you in so many different ways; Your eyebrows knit in concern, your lips pursed in concentration, your nose scrunched in embarrassment.

But, Killua had never seen your cheeks lose their rosy color or your bottom lip tremble. He had never seen your eyes wide and glassy in panic, or shiny as tears began to form.

It wasn’t that you were weak, or that you weren’t fit for this job (although Killua realized as the both of you came to a safe spot on top of an abandoned rooftop that he truly believed you deserved better). The problem was that the world was cruel, and you weren’t like him. 

Of course Killua wanted better for himself, and had learned to  _be_  better. Gon and Alluka and dozens of friends along the way had taught him how much more there was in the world, to strive for something other than the gritty and dirty darkness he’d been raised within. But, at the end of the day, he still knew the reality of people like who he once was, people like his family.

Maybe you knew that, too, at least in theory. After all, you held out better against the criminals you’d both been hired to take down than the other members of the team had. You had been able to stifle your reaction to the cruelty and horror as you saw the mission to completion. Now that it was over, though, Killua saw the toll it had taken upon you.

For some reason, it upset him more than it should have.

For some reason, Killua didn’t want you to suffer.

For some reason, he very badly wanted to protect you from it all.

You’d forced a break once the two of you were in the safety of the wind-breaking cover of a brick door alcove on the roof of some random building, as you both made your way back to base.

All night you had done what needed to be done, but Killua could easily see that your strength was cracking. Your composure was finally lost. 

His mouth opened, willing words into existence that could help soothe your pain (did any such words exist?), but before he could, you threw yourself against him. Years of Alluka’s surprise hugs ensured that Killua’s first instinct wasn’t to push you away for what he might have otherwise seen as an attack, but the action still stunned him, making him stiff with shock as his mind processed the embrace.

Then it clicked, and for a fleeting second, Killua felt the vague and protective impulse to tease you for so boldly throwing yourself against him. He didn’t, though. Those words faded away as easily as the lipservice of comfort he had intended to provide.

Maybe you needed this.

Killua’s arms raised to wrap around you, pulling you closer.

Maybe he wanted this.

Your face nuzzled against his chest, your tears soaking into the fabric of his shirt. That action, that sensation, cast away any and all self control.

Maybe he needed this.

For reasons Killua didn’t dare name, he could remember you in hundreds of ways, picture your voice and face and mannerisms with crisp clarity, but those were only two pieces of the puzzle, two senses that he had to recall you with.

Maybe he wanted more.

More than the occasional graze of your hand against his, of the slight and casual friendly gestures you sometimes offered. Now he could really  _feel_  you, feel that you were warm, you were so impossibly  _warm_. Killua hadn’t thought of himself as being particularly cold until you touched him, but he knew that if you were to pull away now he would freeze to the bone.

He could  _feel_  how solid and  _real_  you were in his arms, how comforting of a weight you were against him. Until you laid your head against his chest, your arms wrapping around his waist, Killua had been sure of his comfort as he composed himself from the stress of the situation and considered how to help you. Despite that, if your soothing embrace was gone, he was sure that the loss would make him ache.

Killua could  _feel_  the tickle of your soft hair on his chin, the desperate grab of your hands against his back. He could feel the shape of your body against his, how perfectly you fit against him and the softness of your chest and waist, tucked so neatly to him with his hands carefully placed at the reasonable spot of your middle back.

More. Maybe, subconsciously, he wanted  _more_  than the occasional whiff of your hair or skin when he happened to be too close by. Almost without thinking, Killua pressed his nose to your head, inhaling the scent of your hair. It was nothing more than an impulse (or so he could tell himself), but not one that he took any effort in denying. He wanted to  _smell_  you, to have that piece of the puzzle slotted away in his mind, to solve that curiosity.

You smelled sweet, so sweet. The combination of your shampoo and the natural warm scent of your scalp with the darker base of your sweat filled his mind, overwhelming and intoxicating. Uniquely you, soft and comforting, feeding the ignored taboo that memorized your expressions and mannerisms, that held the very thought of you to the forefront of many of his thoughts.

And still Killua wanted more. Some greedy part of his mind wanted to touch you properly and to know the scent of your skin, to explore these curiosities fully, to protect you from the world.

But then you sniffed, a reminder of your tears and turmoil, of the reason you had sought his embrace at all, and Killua felt a violent rush of regret and self loathing for those thoughts. 

The reason you were crying at all was because of men like him, rather, who he used to be (but what kind of man felt the things he just had?). Would you still seek solace in his arms knowing that? Would you still  _need_  him then?

Would you still show such vulnerability if you knew his thoughts?

No. You wouldn’t.

“Is this okay?” you finally asked, your voice quiet and unsure, stopping Killua from forcing himself to pull away. He knew your voice to a pitch perfect degree, and now it was weaker than he’d ever heard it, worsening the guilt and intensifying his ache to protect you. “I’m sorry, I-” You let out a hitching breath, nuzzling against his chest again in a seemingly unconscious expression of stress.

It wasn’t that you were weak.

“No,” Killua replied, his voice coming out gruffer than intended, making you tense up. He cleared his throat before you could pull away, rubbing your back without thinking. “I… I don’t mind.”

But you still needed him, in this moment.

“I didn’t think it’d be so hard, but the look in their eyes…” you said quietly, “You can’t reason with them, it’s like they’re… Monsters.” You let out a heavy and shuddering breath, then your arms dropped. 

Killua let you go, allowing you to step away and leave him cold. It  _ached_. Although your eyes were red and swollen, you looked far more composed now.

Then you smiled.

It was another new one for his collection, something brittle and brave. Beautiful, heart-breakingly beautiful.

“Let’s get back then, I’m ready for this all to be over,” you said with more confidence, almost an attempt at a playful tone.

The words hit Killua hard. You were ready for this all to be over. To bid him goodbye, to move on.

“And, ah… I’m… Sorry about that,” you added sheepishly before turning away, “You’re a good hugger, though. Thank you.” The smile you wore turned genuine, the look you gave him enough to make Killua feel his cheeks heat up, his chest fluttering strangely.

“Don’t mention it,” he replied with a forced casualness, hating the flush of emotion your words sent through him. Then you turned away, taking the warmth with you. Quick on your heels came the burn of embarrassment and a harsh pang of disappointment. Killua shook his head to clear it, his hands raising to readjust the tail he kept his hair in as he slowly began to follow.

You wanted- 

Killua knew it wasn’t weakness you suffered from, it was vulnerability and your bright smile, it was the fact that you were far too good for the world you’d involved yourself in. You wanted this to be over because the horrors of the world had worn you out, but you’d seek it out all over again the moment you got paid.

You needed-

Killua knew you weren’t entirely naive. You were too trusting and hopeful. You miscalculated the danger of the world in your belief of the good. You needed to be protected from that.

He wanted-

Killua knew he could keep you safe if he stuck with you, perhaps he could even teach you enough that you wouldn’t need to be protected anymore. You were scared of the monsters, but he was far more dangerous than any of them. He wanted to protect you.

He needed-

_Soft and warm in his arms, Killua could still feel the phantom feeling of your arms around his waist, the comforting weight of your body pressed against his._

He needed-

_If he breathed deeply he could ignore the smell of the city air and recall the sweet scent of your hair, the natural musk of your sweat mixed with the fragrance of your shampoo._

He needed-

_More._

He needed-

You.


	87. Chrollo Soulmate Part 3

Chrollo was meticulous. He hadn’t wasted any time in finding you after you had senselessly run away from him, caught up in emotion after seeing the true cold brutality he possessed. Control seemed to be an effortless engagement for him against your struggling and fearful refusal to cooperate. No matter what, you always were the one unraveling and cracking. It was always your eyes that were filled with tears, that went wild as they confronted the unbreakable slate of his.

He had tied your arms soundly behind your back when he realized you wouldn’t settle down on your own, or perhaps as punishment and to regain that unshakable control, leaving you unable to do anything as he threw you onto the scratchy material of the cheap motel’s bedspread. The force bounced you back up, but being bound left you no option other than flopping like a ragdoll, the bed springs squeaking beneath you. It hurt your shoulders and arms, and being tied up made it especially awkward to scramble backwards, to find a position that wasn’t as uncomfortable.

Chrollo was an enigma. Once, he had told you that he wished to use you to understand his true self. Such a charming line, spoken in the lovely light of the setting sun on the day you first met your fated in that oh-so-romantic urban graveyard. Now you understood, or, rather, didn’t understand what that statement actually meant.

It was impossible for you read his expression as he locked the door and took off his coat, his eyes turned away from you and body forcefully relaxed. Although he was a difficult read, you could tell the lines of tension in Chrollo’s posture. Your running away had upset him.

As he turned towards you, you were struck with a grim feeling of sickening melancholy. The lighting of the room was similar to that of your first meeting, painted with the oranges and yellows that snuck their way in through the broken pieces of the drawn blinds.

Seeing the similarity hurt you, the sight tied to a different set of emotions than the ones that made your heart pound. Now, rather than hope and excitement, all you felt was the bitter echo of confusion and conflict that had plagued you throughout the day. The desire to figure out and relate to Chrollo fought angrily with the fear of the madness you saw in his behavior, the fear of what truly understanding him might invite inside of you.

It wasn’t love that had blinded you to this before today, not yet, but it was impossible to deny the rose colored glasses that you had worn to maintain your stupidly hopeless mentality of fate. You had only run because seeing him kill so brutally had forcefully taken those lenses away, had forced you to confront the reality you’d willing locked yourself into. A reality where you were certain you didn’t, you  _couldn’t_ , belong.

Chrollo was a liar. The true self he had spoken of was a lie. He was built upon hundreds and hundreds of those.  _Your_  liar, the man you had fallen for, was merely one of the men within that tangled mess. Was that why fate had tied the little red knots connecting you to him? An enigmatic liar and a hopeless fool; you made for a disastrously fitted pair.    
  
“You know I’ll easily be able to find you if you run,” Chrollo said, his face and voice schooled into a perfect mask of calm as he turned to you, “Yet you tried anyway.” As he sat on the bed, keeping himself above you, an unhelpful thought welled in your thoughts.  
  
Chrollo was beautiful. A beautiful meticulous and enigmatic liar. He offered you a beautiful dream with his beautiful voice in a beautiful moment in that beautiful coffee shop. The beauty of it had burned so bright it blinded you to reality until that beautiful dream was long dead, lost in the ashes of the hopeless idiot who chose to trust a man she knew was a criminal.

There was no beauty here, in this cheap and mostly vacant motel on the outskirts of nowhere a million miles from home. It was an ugly place where the only witnesses to your regret and fear as Chrollo dragged you from the car and up a set of crumbling concrete stairs to Room 66 were a drained, trash-strewn swimming pool and a half-lit flickering sign.

No witness, surely, but maybe there were eyes, peeking out through the cheap coverings on the dirty windows that lined the poorly maintained block of rooms. And maybe there were ears, listening through the thin barrier of the walls. But they all belonged to ghosts, to the deaf and the blind. Ghosts, sure, but dead things still carried some life, didn’t they? A haunting residual energy of that which passed through. Transient places of rest were especially rife with it, the haunting shadow memories of the hundreds who had momentarily stopped on their way to something else.

Room 66 was limbo itself, the imprinted snapshot of dozens of lives preserved in the faded and peeling wallpaper and stained mattress. It was fitting for limbo, a haunted and in-between place of non-existence, to be the setting for this turning point. Dramatically thematic in a way your sane mind could appreciate. Was that why he’d brought you here?

You took a deep breath in an attempt to clear your mind of all those distracting thoughts, recognizing that Chrollo was waiting for a response. Then, with some effort, you sat up, trying to even the playing field a bit. Not that it did much other than put stress on your already worn out and shaking core muscles.  

“I wasn’t running,” you finally told him, trying keep your lack of confidence and overwhelming fear as muted you could manage. Rather than sounding afraid, however, you ended up with a whining tone, your voice quiet in an attempt to hide the childish wobbling you couldn’t contain. The sound was undeniably pathetic and unbelievable, every bit as pathetic as the tears that gathered in your eyes, and even worse because you couldn’t  _help_  them, no matter how much you despised this weakness.

You were a lover, not a fighter, and emotional appeals came far more naturally than the logic you knew was the only way to win him over to the arguments you’d prepared while walking. Just as naturally came the tears in your eyes, welling and overflowing down your cheeks because exhaustion was a splitting headache behind your temple, tension written into every muscle of your body, and the pain, an intense hurt that you could only call heartbreak, split you apart every time you looked at Chrollo.

Because he was your Soulmate, your fated, your  _meant to be_. He was your dream and prayer and hope, he was the thing you’d spent all of your life looking for. Chrollo was also, for all intents and purposes, the worst man you had ever met. A horrifying criminal with a record that dripped so much blood you were sure it had stained your hands, too. And, even still, you  _wanted_  him. Because he was your Soulmate.

“I needed to think,” you continued, your tone fading further as you sniffed and endured the discomfort of the tears falling with your bound hands unable to wipe them away, “This all happened so…”

What? So fast? Perhaps that was true in a way, but you couldn’t claim victimhood when you’d blinded yourself to the truth to save your naive trust in fate.

Absolutely hopeless.

“You’re scared of me,” Chrollo stated, completely stoic. You didn’t dare meet his eyes, but you didn’t have to in order to feel the weight of them on your face.

“Yes,” you agreed, the truth falling from your lips before you could censor yourself because lying had never been your forte and he was no fool, but maybe you were. Before he could respond, you amended that admission, looking up to meet his eyes in the hopes he’d see your emotional distress. That Chrollo, no matter how inhuman you’d begun to realize he was, would recognize your pain. “You kill people, you didn’t even… You didn’t even hesitate. I don’t understand… How could you murder innocents? They weren’t a real threat, they didn’t even.. They didn’t even stand a chance.”

Chrollo was silent for a moment, studying your face in a way that made you want to shrink back or look away, yet also in a way that kept you frozen and unable to do either. 

It was stupid to question him now, it was your own fault for ignoring the warnings, but it was, horribly enough, a relief to say those words out loud. They had been building the entire day as you had run through an unfamiliar city without any money or identification in a country where you couldn’t speak the language, trapped and knowing there was only one conclusion, yet fighting the inevitable as you waited for him to find you because resistance was the only way you could think of to separate yourself from the horror you’d seen.

“Are you crying for the people I killed?” Chrollo finally asked, voicing one of the last questions you had expected him to ask.

Your breath caught, heart seizing as you processed that question. The answer wasn’t hard to find, your honesty in this regard providing it nearly instantly. No. You were crying for yourself, and maybe even for him, the murderer. You were mourning your loss of naivety to what being the head of the Phantom Troupe truly made him, crying because of the pain in your cruel awakening to what kind of criminal Chrollo actually was.

Your mouth opened, but guilt held your tongue as it washed over your internal drama. People were dead, the murderer tied to you by fate, and you were lost in your own pain.

Selfish. You were selfish.  

Chrollo pulled in a breath through his teeth, looking towards the window and the darkness that had fallen without you noticing. Despite his question, there was a lack of the judgement you deserved in his tone and expression. He had meant it as a question, not an accusation.

“They were in my way, why should I stop and think about it?” Chrollo muttered under his breath, as if musing to himself, “Death is a variable in any plan. Does that make it subject to fate? Or am I still missing something…”

He paused, suspended in contemplation. Finally, he turned back to you. There was a softer cast to his expression now, something you recognized from the beginning, something human in the way his features were held. A lie? You desperately wished for it not to be.

“Your trust in fate led you to recklessly find and follow me, and mine compelled me to take you with me despite the risk. Should you really be so surprised by what I’ve done? When I warned you of who I was and what I do, you still chose to come with me.” Chrollo paused, his dark eyes scanning your expression carefully before continuing in a warmer tone, a kind one. “That’s because you had faith in whatever power would bind us together. I’d like to believe that what you saw today wouldn’t ruin that faith.”

Faith.

A single word reminder of the beauty that had dazzled you enough to convince you to leave with him while ignoring all logic and reason, a reminder of the idea he represented that had met every naive fairytale dream you’d had of Soulmates and love. Lies, lies, all of it beautiful and perfect lies.

Reckless, careless, silly, naive, hopeless, hopeless, you were absolutely  _hopeless_.

You swallowed hard, knowing more tears were gathering in your eyes. You hated them, hated that Chrollo could be so strong and stoic and reasonable while in the end all you were was an emotionally inclined cry-baby. You cried at the Notebook and A Walk to Remember because you were a hopeless romantic with disturbingly selfish inclinations, because you had never faced hardship of this type and you weren’t suited to these difficult moral choices and the ugly truth of crime and the dirty feeling of witnessing and being complicit in murder because all you had ever wanted was love and to be loved, to find your other half at the end of the red string on your left pinky.

But here you were. Crying wouldn’t save you.

“You said…” You began, pausing to clear your throat when the tears proved to be too thick to speak through. “You said that you were glad to have me because you wanted to understand your true self,” you said, recounting words that you had severely underestimated at the time.

Watery eyes met Chrollo’s hardened grey ones, which were almost too dark to make out now that the sun had set completely, the only light coming from the artificial glow of the neon signs outside. He said nothing, waiting for you to continue.

Faith. All you could do was try, right?

“Have you ever considered that this isn’t the right path to find that?” you asked, pleading desperately with your eyes for Chrollo to understand.

Soulmates were meant to be together, meant to fulfill the other and make them whole. Maybe, just maybe, it was fate that you should convince Chrollo of another way of life. That was the hopeful conclusion you had come to while wondering the foreign city, the reason your tears had partially been for him, weeping for this strange and confused enigma of a man. That was why you had been able to accept the conclusion of being found, of being forced to a place like this.

“I’m not… I can’t abide murder,” you continued with growing confidence, feeling a rise of belief in your words as they organized in your head, “I can’t just  _accept_  that your true self is a person who callously commits horrible crimes. As my Soulmate, that doesn’t make any  _sense_ , and I  _want_  to help you. I want you to find peace and to stop lying… Chrollo, I want to have faith in fate and help you, I want you to find the truth.”

Just as heavily as his, your impromptu speech settled heavily in the musty and tense room. In the silence, the loud sound of the air conditioning unit beneath the window rumbling to life made you flinch, doing nothing but moving around the stale air. Still, you waited anxiously, your bound arms chafing enough to make not fidgeting a difficult task.

“The truth… I’ve wondered about that myself,” Chrollo mused, his expression unchanging. You let out a breath, feeling some sort of tension ease.

“So you… You agree?” you asked, hope springing up in your heart against everything that should have kept your expectations muted, “I know it would be hard, but I promise you that there’s a better way of living. We can find it together.”

He blinked, an expression of what almost looked like confusion coming across his face.

“You’re suggesting I give up the Spider?” Chrollo asked.

“I…” you hesitated, but it was too late to back out, “I guess… I am.”

Silence.

It hit harder than anything, somehow. 

Your heart pounded as you waited for his response, wishing more than ever that you weren’t in such a compromising position and could wipe the mess of tears on your cheeks. Chrollo seemed to be similarly waiting for something, but you had no more words, nothing left to offer.

Finally, as if accepting that you were actually done, he laughed, his eyes closing as he turned away. It wasn’t a kind sound.

“Have you considered that you’re the one in the wrong?” Chrollo asked when his eyes reopened, fixing on you with an expression that made your skin crawl. You saw no humor in this situation, but somehow your plea had managed to make him finally relax, a half smile twisting his lips.

You had been mistaken in your line of thinking and pleading.

Dangerous, he looked dangerous. Predatory.

You’d given too much weight to his words, when it should have been clear to you that Chrollo didn’t want to change, not really.

But, even despite that,

“I don’t think I am,” you told him quietly, refusing to give up your belief. Your hope, no matter how foolish, was one of the few things keeping you sane. If you gave it up, what would you have? 

“You’re so sure of your morality, yet you’d forgive me if I agreed… Its fascinating, but… I can’t help but feel frustrated when I see that look in your eyes.” Chrollo paused with a contemplative frown, reaching out and gently wiping your cheek with a swipe of his thumb, his eyes not leaving yours, “What will you do if I refuse? I can’t let you run or put yourself at risk, but keeping you with me by force would be… inconvenient.”

You wanted to scorn his touch and casual dismissal, to spit in his face and demand he untie you. But, in all honesty, you didn’t know what you’d do. You hadn’t thought this far ahead, you hadn’t considered the unthinkable fate that you would be continually drawn into his frightening world, cursed for the sole sin of being connected to Chrollo Lucilfer by fate.

But you weren’t wrong. Murdering people, stealing things, ruining lives without any care for what the consequences… Those things were wrong.

Unquestionably. 

You swallowed hard, fighting with all your might against the lump of tears. Strength was important, now more than ever. This was your burden, then, wasn’t it? The fate you had been granted, as cruel and horrifying as it seemed. Your entire life had been spent in pursuit of this connection, you had wanted to find your Soulmate since you were a child. So helping him… Well, in a twisted and cruel way, you supposed it made sense.

“I’ll find a way to convince you,” you told Chrollo, your hands forming fists behind your back, “I… I won’t run, but as long as I’m with you, I’ll do whatever it takes to help you see.”

Chrollo raised one eyebrow.

“Help me?”

“I believe… That you can be better,” you told him, “That you can be more than the Spider.”

You didn’t expect your hopelessly desperate conviction to lend those words as much weight as they did, but you felt their effect immediately in the way tension returned between you.

Chrollo tilted his chin up, studying you seriously. You half expected him to laugh again, but he didn’t. In fact, he remained entirely silent and still, his eyes watching you without expression. 

Second by second, the extended moment following your statement racked up into what you could believe to be literal minutes. The two of you sat in that silence, Chrollo thinking hard about what you could only guess at while your anxiety and fear ratcheted up with each tick of the clock.

“You should try to sleep,” he finally said in a moderate voice, puncturing that bubble of quiet and standing up. The shift did nothing to help soothe your nerves, adding confusion to the whirling mix of emotions you felt. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”

You watched as Chrollo pulled his coat back on, his expression maintained into a perfectly stoic mask.

“Where are you going?” you asked, your confused nerves telegraphing obviously in your voice. Chrollo finally cast you a glance, but it was too dark for you to see his face.

“Would you prefer I stay and we share the bed?” he asked lightly, casually. Your breath caught, you hadn’t really thought about that, but you didn’t want him to just up and leave you, either. Your lack of answer seemed to be response enough for Chrollo.

It wasn’t until he was sweeping out the door that you really comprehended what was going on, that you wanted to protest the fact that he’d leave you alone and tied up in some shady motel room. But the door had been slammed, the lock engaged, and you were by yourself.

The air conditioner shut off, the room no less warm than it had been before and plunging you into an absolute complete silence. You waited for Chrollo to come back, to return and save you from the dark and the quiet and the fear and the overwhelming sensation that _you couldn’t possibly do this_ , but he didn’t.

When grief and heartache became too heavy to bear, everything that had just happened replying in your head as you tried to find your mistakes, you fell onto your back, the mattress squeaking beneath you and your arms sparking with the beginnings of numbness. The ceiling, with its roadmap of cracks and discolorations, offered you no answers or comfort, the ghosts of the room retreating as your emotions swelled.

Terrible, cruel fate.

Terrible, cruel man.

Terrible and cruel, and oh-so unfair.  

It wasn’t long before you were curled on your side, weeping as you selfishly mourned, drowning in the pity of despair and misery. Drenched and exhausted when that extreme faded, sleep wasn’t hard to find in the end, acting as your sole savior.

Your sleeping mind conjured up sexy, dark-haired male leads of a stoic nature and their emotionally enlightening female counterpart. You dreamed a romance movie, a technicolor and idealized world where the worst the dark-horse hero had ever done was not wear a helmet on his sexy motorcycle. A world where tragedy and melodrama were solved by love, and happy endings were the prizes for those who tried hard enough to be good.

There were no killers of varied personalities, who spoke lies without care and murdered and stole for fun. There were no fools who pretended to believe in the good of someone beyond saving to save herself the moral weight of guilt and conscious.

They were all faultless, blameless, sterile, and perfect. They deserved the ending scene where they were called Soulmates in declaration only, not bound by fate, but by true love. It was wonderful.

And, as a hopeless romantic, you always enjoyed a good happy ending. 


	88. Vampire!Hisoka Part One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed the title to be more clear !

Dark hair, milky white skin, and quite obviously handsome even from across the floor and in the dim lighting; the man sitting in the corner of the bar was, simply put, out of your league. Although your rowdy herd of summer-vacationing students had driven out a few groups of locals from the high energy bar, there was an equal number that seemed content to party with foreigners, or at least put up with them.

He seemed to be the later, a local to Nou Bucurie (if his nearly translucently pale skin was any indicator) but not one who cared to bother getting involved with any of the chaos. In fact, he looked quite content to play people-watcher in the seclusion of a booth over a wave of glossy playing cards.

Maybe that should have seemed weird or creepy, but hot guys like him would always have a way with pulling off odd behavior without raising warning bells, and the mystery of why he chose to sit alone was alluring in its own right.

Not that you were the only one thinking that. You knew other girls (and, honestly, a few of the guys) from your party were eyeing him up approvingly, their attention drawn despite how crowded with men the bar had become as the night grew later. You were surprised that even the most confident of your lot seemed apprehensive about approaching him, but he did have that intimidating sort of aura surrounding him. Something a little dangerous and off-putting, which added to the sexiness of what you would non-ironically dub ‘tall dark and handsome’.

All of those things in mind, yeah, your chances seemed a little slim (maybe incredibly slim), but, well, fuck it, right?

You were free of exams and the stress of school and on a vacation in a country that was six thousand miles from home, one of the likely-forgettable many in a crowd of students drunk on relief (and, given that the drinking age was lower than your home country’s, regular drunk) college kids. For that matter, you were too, nursing a drink until your head was spinning and your shoulders feeling lighter than they had in weeks.

Plus, daringly approaching a hot local, even with the high chance of rejection, seemed somehow less daunting than spending the whole night bitterly sipping a rum and coke while trying your very hardest to ignore the fact that your ex boyfriend and one of your closest friends had chosen this trip to officially become ‘a thing’. Your bitterness was worse because you knew they weren’t being intentionally cruel. It was only an accident that were they rubbing salt in the wound with their constant apologetic glances and overly kind behavior towards you.

And, honestly? You were sick of moping. You hadn’t spent an obscene amount of time doing your hair and makeup to act like a petulant child all night.

So, downing the rest of your drink to ease your nerves with a flash of fiery rum courage, you stood up from your stool and made your way through the sweaty crowd. Normally, you might have been inclined to take baby steps, starting easy by dancing with everyone and chatting some guy up with a group to support you, but you were in an all or nothing kind of mood now. Determination to scorn your usual lack of confidence lent you strength, and so did the pleasant spin of your alcohol poisoned mind. And, well, you couldn’t deny that you had something to prove. Being the first to take the oh-so-sexy bait of mister tall dark and handsome when there was obvious all-around interest was almost as spine-tinglingly exciting as the man himself.

Approaching him from the side saved you from catching his attention until you did the very last thing you would believe yourself to be capable of, and perhaps the most forward thing you’d ever done. Relaxed with liquor and bolstered by this rush of fragile confidence, you smoothed the skirt of your dress beneath you and sat across the booth from the handsome stranger, getting your first real look at him up close.

Illuminated by the single exposed bulb above the table, it was clear that he was somehow  _more_  attractive than you thought at first, albeit in a different way from what you’d usually consider ‘your type’. Beneath a set of angular eyes that had to have been lined with some variety of eyeliner, he’d painted (tattooed?) a star and a teardrop in purple on the apples of his cheeks. The colored shapes broke up the perfectly smooth milky pale color of his skin, highlighting the near impossibility of such a flawless complexion. Sharp nose, narrow yet striking jawline, and some of the most shapely lips you’d ever seen outside of an airbrushed photo; all of this styled in, if you had to guess what to call it, androgynous gothic, or maybe just some stage performance wear of some type.

Maybe not your  _type_.

But way,  _way_ , out of your league.

Becoming aware of your arrival, and perhaps your staring, the man’s gaze pulled up from the fan of cards in his hands, his eyes meeting yours.

It was then that you realized the flaw in your masterful lack of plan. Meeting new people and casual conversation weren’t your strong suits. Especially not when you were flustered, which was certainly what happened when you met his amber eyes (they were almost gold, shining in the warm light). The look sent a flash of butterfly-ridden heat through your stomach, color rising to your already tipsy-flushed cheeks.

He smiled, an expression you could only label as mischievously playful. For as much sex appeal as he had, the boyish nature of the look was staggering. 

“Can I help you?” he asked in a sweet voice, the words flirtatiously drawn out.  

You could feel the effect the sound had on your mind, a lightheadedness that made you glad you sat down right away. His face, his voice, the strange sensation of meeting those lovely eyes; for a moment you felt drowned in nerves and embarrassment, certain that you were going to make a fool of yourself.

Then, somehow, you laughed lightly, a breathy giggle that sounded nothing like yourself.

“Maybe? I’d normally never do this,” you began with a shy smile and a surge of bubbly forwardness invited by the buzz of alcohol in your blood and maybe by his enticingly flirtatious tone, “I’m actually pretty shy, usually, you know? But-” You cast your eyes back to your group. Most of them were drunk and caught up in their own fun, but you could practically  _feel_ the eyes that had followed you over here crawling across your skin. That only egged you on, oddly enough. Forcing yourself to ignore them, you looked back at the stranger with a smile. “I figured I’d at least  _ask_  if you wanted some company.”

You weren’t sure if your words were slightly slurred from nervous butterflies or the rum, but you were thankful that you managed to speak mostly coherently, even if your tone was high pitched and breathless in a way you didn’t recognize.

“Shouldn’t you introduce yourself, first?” the man asked in return, his small smile not dropping.

Giddily taking that as some kind of approval of your advances, you gave him your name. Considering the way his gaze was unyieldingly locked onto yours, tempting a strange shiver into tingling down your spine, you were glad you were able to get it out without stuttering. “May I ask your name..?” you added a second after, uncertain hope in your voice.

“Mmm, I’m Hisoka,” he introduced himself a second later, his voice drawing silkily across his name, “It’s a  _pleasure_  to meet you.”

You couldn’t help another ditsy giggle at the seductively formal way he said that, butterflies flushing anew through your stomach.

“The pleasure is all mine,” you replied playfully.

A beat of silence passed between you. Well, not silence. The volume of the bar was set at a dull roar, and you could feel the music thudding into you from all angles, but it was still made clear that Hisoka was waiting for you to take the lead. After all, you were the one who approached him. Once again, you felt the harsh reminder of your own incompetence at socializing, but, once again, your dizzily tipsy brain came through for you, drawing words to your mouth before they could be filtered by the sober part of your mind.

“So… Hisoka,” you said, saying his name as if trying to taste the syllables. It was probably for the sole reason that it belonged to him, but you  _liked_  saying his name. “I’m curious… What’s the thing with the cards?”

The question was bluntly spoken, as was your gesture towards the playing cards still in his hands, but he didn’t seem annoyed. In fact, you could almost say Hisoka looked pleased by the inquiry.

“Why? Would you like to play a game?” he asked. You let out a distinctly unfeminine snort of a breath at the idea.

“I’m really terrible at card games, even when I’m sober,” you admitted, trying to play it off with a shrug, “Sorry..”

Hisoka didn’t look put off by your answer, the corner of his lips quirking in amusement.

“Don’t be. A quality deck of playing cards can have many uses, you see-” Proving his point, Hisoka held up the deck with their shiny backs to you. Then, with a quick twist of motion, they were gone. Disappeared. He flipped his hands, backs then palms, ensuring you could also get a good look at the fact that he was wearing short sleeves. “I’m a magician.”  

The confusion of liquor in your system heightened the fact that that was possibly the coolest bit of sleight of hand magic you’d ever seen, leaving you in open-mouthed shock as you tried to figure out how he could have  _possibly_  done that with your eyes watching his every move. It also stripped you of your skepticism, accepting his claim without any doubt. It explained the strange styling choices, too.

You’d come to a country known for vampires and found a magician.

There was no disappointment in that twist of events.

“How did you do that?” you asked, leaning forward on the table with a wide smile and possibly excessive enthusiasm. Drunk you was easily impressed it seemed.

“A true magician never reveals his secrets,” Hisoka told you, holding up a finger as if to chide you. For a second you wanted to protest, but you doubted he’d give in.

“Fine… Will you show me another trick, then?” you asked instead, easily moving past any disappointment at not knowing.

“Sure,” Hisoka agreed, looking pleased with your excited attention, “But first, a drink.” He looked past you, hand rising towards what you assumed to be a waitress. Considering how busy the bar was, at first you doubted he’d be able to entice any server over to your table, but you were proved wrong when an overworked waitress arrived tableside almost instantly.

“Two shots of tuica,” he said, meeting her eyes, which were glazed over with what you imagined to be fatigue.

“That’s all?” she asked. Hisoka hummed, and she went off. The fast exchange seemed odd to you for some reason, but, then again, you imagined somebody who looked as uniquely alluring yet dangerous as Hisoka lived with such odd exchanges.

“What’s tuica?” you asked, the foreign word feeling awkward in your mouth.

“A liquor distilled from plums,” he answered candidly, “I’m surprised you haven’t heard of it until now.” A smile drew across his lips. “I’m honored to be your first.”

Even tipsy and giggly and maybe a bit oblivious, you could easily hear the intended double meaning in those words. You wanted to object that he wouldn’t be your first, but that’d mean admitting that you’d taken his words in a sexual way. In the end you said nothing, embarrassed attraction twisting in your stomach and heat flushing your cheeks.

“Now, for my trick… How about a game?” Hisoka asked, moving on without waiting for your response. You took in an even breath, forcing yourself to relax. 

“What kind of game?” 

“A guessing game. I’ll guess five things about you. If I get any of them wrong, I’ll tell you how I did that trick.”

“And if you get them all right?” you asked.  

“Are you afraid I’ll ask for a favor you might not want to give?” Hisoka asked in a low voice that stung of dark humor.

Well, no, you hadn’t been afraid of that. Until he mentioned it. Seeing your expression, he soothed that concern immediately.

“Don’t worry, my only satisfaction is in the game itself,” he purred. 

You nodded in understanding, laughing airily with a twisting feeling of relief. Not that you’d admit it out loud, but you kind of wanted to know what kind of favors he’d ask for.

Then again, it was probably for the better you didn’t.

“That’s fine, then,” you said, smiling with fresh excitement. 

“Okay… One-” He held up a finger. “You attend Kingston University in the United States of Saherta.”

“That wasn’t a very hard guess,” you said playfully, unable to stop yourself from laughing again. The last time you’d been this giggly was… No, you couldn’t remember. If you weren’t so immersed in Hisoka, you might have been embarrassed for how shamelessly flirtatious you were behaving.

“But am I wrong?” Hisoka pushed.

“No,” you relented in amusement, dropping your chin into your palms, elbows braced on the table.

He smiled.

“Two. Before you approached me, you were drinking a rum and coke,” Hisoka’s chin tilted up, a thoughtful expression on his face and those entrancing amber eyes on yours, “A pity, I don’t especially like rum… From now on you should remember that.”

Your head fell to the side, eyebrows furrowing. There was something oddly presumptuous about the last statement, but you had the urge to appease him. Impress him. You wanted to impress Hisoka. If you were more sober, maybe you’d care about how silly that was, but you weren’t.

“Me neither, really… I don’t drink very often so… It all kind of tastes the same,” you responded honestly, completely spacing on the fact that he knew what you had been drinking at all.

“Is that so?” Hisoka asked, “I have very particular tastes… I’d rather restrain myself until I can indulge in something  _remarkably_  delicious than settle for something-” For just a fraction of a second, you saw his eyes flick to the crowd you’d all but forgotten about. “Uninspired.”

You couldn’t help but laugh a bit at the strangely serious way he spoke, shaking your head.

“It’s just alcohol.”

Hisoka looked back to you, a smirk playing on his lips.

“Three,” he continued the game without transition, catching you off guard for a moment, “You have a cut on your thigh. It bled, but you’ve since cleaned and bandaged it very well. Good girl, it’s important to keep _your_  blood clean.”

At his mentioning, your hand went to where your dress covered the bandage on your thigh. It had been a mistake, a ragged piece of metal catching your skin, but you hadn’t thought about it at all until now. As long as you didn’t bleed too much and kept any wounds clean and in check, you tried not to worry about such things. How could he have possibly guessed that?

And then there was the matter of him calling you a good girl… That term should have felt far more condescending than it did. Or maybe you just didn’t mind when it was spoken in his lovely voice.

Before you could say anything, not that you’d necessarily know how to respond, the waitress arrived back with two crystal shot glasses of clear liquid. It was just as jarring as Hisoka’s guessing game, but you smiled at her on the compulsion of years and years of having manners pounded into your head.

“Thank you,” you said as you accepted yours, but her glassy eyes didn’t meet yours. She left with the same uncomfortable impression you’d gotten before, but that concern was quickly driven from your mind.

“Tuica is often enjoyed before meals, you know,” Hisoka mused, pulling your distracted attention back to him. He was staring down at his crystal glass with a mysterious half smile, gently swirling the clear liquid, “Supposedly, it increases your appetite.”

“Oh?” You looked down at your own glass, biting your lip as you considered how to elaborate. Maybe because you didn’t want to be uncomfortable and maybe because you didn’t like the awkwardness that had come over you, but mostly because your head was still unsteady enough to make any concern seem much less important than it might have otherwise been, you decided to crack a joke. “Are you the type to enjoy midnight snacks?” you asked.

The silly attempt at smoothing things over made Hisoka’s eyes rise up, unreadable and bright in a way you couldn’t concisely identify, before he began to laugh. Even if you didn’t quite understand the reason he found it so funny, you didn’t mind the raspy sound. It gave you chills, although not unpleasantly.

“I suppose we’ll have to see,” he said warmly, holding up his glass. Meeting his amber eyes, you clinked the crystal lip of your glass to his before following his example and throwing back the shot of clear alcohol in one go. It burned, biting your tongue and throat and stomach with a fiery heat that the rum from earlier couldn’t even hope to compare to. You set the glass down, breathing evenly through the aftertaste that lingered on your tongue with the particular type of vengeance only moonshine could bring.  

“Four,” Hisoka pushed on, not affected in the least despite the way you were still reeling, “You have  _golden blood_.”

Just like that, thoughts of your watering eyes and burning insides were gone from your mind, your eyes going round with surprise. Golden blood, as in, Rhnull type. Rare. Dangerously rare.

“How did you know that?” you asked, caught more firmly between uncomfortable and impressed. Your blood type wasn’t something you advertised, nor something you liked to think about too often, and certainly not a fact you told other people. It was a trait that put you in risk, both because the commodity of possessing something so obscenely rare and because if you needed a transfusion, you were all but dead.

Hisoka’s smile widened.

“I didn’t. That was an… Educated guess.” He paused, his tongue passing over his bottom lip in a way that drew your eyes. Discomfort warred in your head with the growing blur of alcohol, the drunken side of yourself flooding with heat that had absolutely nothing to do with the liquor you could still taste on your tongue. “It’s making me  _excited_ , I never thought I’d find a source. Especially not so easily.”

Some part of yourself insisted that those words were dangerous, but the other was preoccupied with his tone, with the silky sweet way he spoke and the dancing of his golden eyes against yours.

“What are you talking about?” you asked, losing the war against intoxication as the heat of it began to tingle all the way into your fingers and toes. It made you want to move, to be touched. To do something you’d regret. There was a whole table separating you from Hisoka, but that space could be closed so easily. Just a little bit of shifting and sliding and-

“Who knows,” Hisoka answered with a secretive smile. Dangerous, dangerous,  _sexy_.

“I…” The phrase ‘getting lost in his eyes’ was perhaps the only thing to define what you felt as your words vaguely trailed off, taking with them the feeling that something wasn’t right. This wasn’t like you, none of this. Not to want to bury your hands in a stranger’s dark hair or press yourself against his body to see if it was as solidly muscular as he looked, and not one to get more drunk than should have been possible with just one shot.

Then, popping up with all the chaotic and unfocused energy of a dog seeing a squirrel, you broke the spell with a single thought.

“I have to pee,” you announced suddenly, standing with a clumsy lack of coordination.

Smooth.

He might have said something, but you couldn’t hear through the blood rushing in your ears as you left the table and his intoxicating company. Navigating through the crowd to the bathroom somehow made you feel even more drunk than you had been sitting down, and you were grateful that the line wasn’t terrible despite the amount of people. Right after washing your hands and making way for a fresh wave of drunk girls, you felt your phone buzz. 

A text from your friend. They were out front about to leave. The lateness of the hour shocked you, the last buses were going to leave soon. You clumsily began to spell out your response as you left the bathroom, your fingers having a hard time finding the right letters.

It wasn’t like you were a rude person, really, but you were swaying with how embarrassingly drunk you’d gotten (obeying the law was at the sacrifice of having any decent tolerance to alcohol, it turned out) and you weren’t sure if you could trust yourself to behave if you saw Hisoka again. Plus, it’d be quicker to leave through the back door than make your way back through the crowd. So, feeling bad in a detached way as your head swum, you began down to the back exit of the bar, distracted while trying to coordinate a response to your friend on your phone.

“Oh dear…”

You dropped your phone in shock, the device falling from your hand when you jumped, whipping around with a quiet yelp. The light from your phone screen left you nearly blind in the dark, blinking quickly to try and find focus on the abstract shapes.

“Leaving so soon? The game isn’t over, you know.” Familiarity flashed through your dizzy head. That voice was impossible to mistake, despite your relatively new acquaintance.

“Hisoka,” you acknowledged with a sigh of relief, a breathy titter of a laugh coming out of your still sharp burst of nerves. Your heart was pounding and body tense from being given such a fright, sighs of an overreaction that made you seem silly, you were sure. “’m sorry, gotta hurry… The busess don’t run very late and they’re waiting,” You thumbed over your shoulder to the single exit door, the sign the only light in the short and narrow hall.

It was slightly uncomfortable that when your blinking eyes could finally make things out of the shadow-shapes, it was only under the light of the red ‘exit’ sign above the door. It dyed Hisoka’s pale skin in the color, doing odd and unnerving things to his face.

“Your friends?” he asked, taking slow steps towards you. The sight filled you with the odd compulsion to step back. Maybe it was because he was much larger than you, a dramatic difference now that you were both standing, or maybe it was just the sudden unease that was needling under your skin.

“Yeah,” you answered, “Maybe we could… Could do this an-nother time?” 

Silence greeted your slurred offer. No, not silence. There was noise and life spilling around the corner behind Hisoka. But here, in this hall, somehow there was some claustrophobic form of silence and isolation. It made you uneasy, but that was nothing compared to his eyes. When he was close enough, it was still too dark to see much of anything with clarity, but their yellow gleam was burning into you.

The rush of nerves and fear didn’t sober you up in the way of stories, but the frustrating struggle for that sense of coherence killed any and all levity you’d felt beforehand.

“If you’re going to leave, you should at least say goodbye,” Hisoka told you, “Otherwise you might hurt my feelings.” 

“I’m ss-sorry…” you said, “Um, but I’ve haveta… Go.” 

With all the grace that could be expected of a lightweight swimming in the horrifically intoxicating waves of home brewed liquor, you crouched down to grab your phone. When you stood up, ready to issue a quick goodbye and run, Hisoka was nowhere to be found. 

Intelligently, eloquently, fearfully, 

“Whatthefu-”

“Five,” Hisoka cooed into your ear, catching you in cold hands when you jumped and overbalanced with a squeaky cry.

There was no way to downplay the genuine and honest terror that surged through you at his touch and proximity, it pushed all the way into the marrow of your bones. But terror brought anger when the sudden thought of the statistics of girls getting assaulted while vacationing in foreign countries popped into your swirling head. And then, in a drunken counter argument, ‘like hell you’d be another goddamn number’.

“You-” he began to list off his last ‘guess’ about you, only to be cut off with a moan-like grunt when you shoved your elbow backwards, stepping in with your spiky high-heel as hard as you could and wrenching yourself away. 

Reckless confidence lent by alcohol and two years worth of the self defense classes offered by campus security turned out to be a good combination, sending you lurching off towards the door the second you were free of his grip. It also stopped you from noticing the fact that his body didn’t yield the way it should have, or really anything other than the primal instinct to escape.

Pushing through the door and into the cooler night air, you let it slam behind you, making your way towards the mouth of the alley that reeked of smoke and city grime.

Right then, you truly believed you’d make it away. Or that he wouldn’t bother to pursue you. And after that, you probably could just forget the whole affair and pretend it never happened, spend the rest of the trip as close to your friends as possible.

The thing was, you didn’t hear the door open, or his shoes crunch on the gravel. You didn’t even hear the air split with the scream you prepared when his arms wrapped around you, because only seconds later you were slammed so hard against the rough brick wall that there was no oxygen left to scream with.

Hisoka’s golden eyes were delighted and wide, wearing a smile that screamed excited pleasure. His body was impossible to fight, now that he was bothering to use a small amount of strength to keep you in place while you gasped for air and helplessly thrashed against him.

“That was very nice,” Hisoka told you sweetly, a tone of lustful encouragement. Pushing you into the wall even harder to ensure you couldn’t escape, his face pressed into your neck where your pulse was ragged and quick, pumping blood through your veins with the rapid pace of fear. The sensation of him inhaling deeply was uncomfortable enough, but then he ran his tongue across the flushed skin, licking a broad stripe right over where your heart beat pulsed wildly on your neck. It made Hisoka groan.

“Oh, you smell so  _good_. Golden blood… Mmm, you’re just my type,” he told you breathily, the words cool against the skin he’d licked and making you shudder.

He was a freak or a fetishist or  _something_  and you were losing  _fast._  Without thinking too hard, driven by the same instinct that had gotten you this far, you stopped struggling and drew in as much breath to scream with as you could because that was your only hope and-

Strong fingers gripped your jaw, pulling your eyes to meet the frightening glow of gold.

“Quiet, now. I’d hate for someone to interrupt us when we’re only beginning…” Hisoka said without breaking eye contact. Just like that, the screams died in your throat, no matter how hard you fought to disobey him and call for help. Instead, you only whimpered.

Hisoka inhaled sharply at the sound, his tongue swiping across his bottom lip, arousal bright in his eyes.

You couldn’t scream and struggling was useless and the horror of what was happening was making you feel  _sick_ , but the pathetic sound of that whimper made you burn with a slushy cocktail of fury and fear, so you drew your mouth in and did the only thing you could think of. The wad of saliva you spat directly at Hisoka’s stupidly perfect face landed on his tear-dropped cheek. 

Tonight was night for exploring a braver part of yourself, it seemed, because sitting across from a hot stranger at a bar was nothing compared to watching that glob slide down his face. What a shame that idiot strength would find you so late in the game.

Despite that painfully frightened thought, you pushed on, refusing to succumb to it. “You-ou ss-suck!” you said with all your mighty rage, which wobbled in your voice with telltale sound of tears. Hisoka laughed, wiping away your saliva without concern.  

“Not yet…” He paused, taking both of your hands and pinning them above your head when you tried to push him off. It hurt, the skin scraping on the brick and his grip just a bit too tight, but your loud cries of pain were silenced by the betrayal of your body following his orders. “I really wanted to be gentle,” Hisoka told you sweetly, wild excitement unconcealed in his tone, “But you’re making it impossible.”


	89. Vampire!Hisoka Part Two

_In your first year and second semester, you had taken an Introduction to Psychology class. You’d gotten a C based on reasons you fundamentally disagreed with, and then decided that psychology was not for you._

Hisoka pushed you up the wall further to punctuate his threat, the skirt of your dress bunching up to your waist and his body pressing even closer. His fingers (cold, inhumanly cold) released your arms, sore from his grip and scraped up from the brick, to hike your thighs up around his hips. Over-sensitized from the alcohol-fueled adrenaline rushing through your veins, you could feel with a terrifying awareness that Hisoka was turned on, the tell-tale hardness pressed intimately close between your forcibly spread thighs.

_Despite your unsatisfactory grade, there were a few things that you could remember. For example, one of the common reactions to current crisis was an oppressive belief that the threat was insurmountable._

You were fighting, but it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to struggle and squirm, and it was impossible to cry out with any amount of volume, it felt like the noise was muffled before it even formed. Not to mention that every panicked movement of your body merely ground your heated core against his clothed erection. Hisoka’s strength, truly, was too great to overcome.

_Another common reaction was a sense of unreality. A disbelief that what was happening couldn’t be real, or an inability to understand the shockingly dramatic deviation of what a person would consider normal. In an attempt to protect itself, the brain simply wouldn’t process the truth._

In response to your accidental grinding, Hisoka paid in kind, rutting against you with an unrestrained need. He was fueled by a lack of control that you could see (practically  _feel_ ) displayed when he forced your eyes to his once again. They gleamed yellow with an incomprehensibly focused madness, the self aware insanity of desire.

And,  _God help you_ , you couldn’t understand this at all.

Rationality would tell you that the lack of humanity in his gaze was imagined, because a person, even a monstrous one, was still human.

Reason reminded you with a flare of panic that demons weren’t real, that creatures of the night only lived in fiction.

But when he smiled (just a little too wide, with teeth a little too sharp) your dazed mess of a mind, swimming with the hazy befuddlement of moonshine and scrambled by being slammed against the wall, was scattered to the illogic of bone deep terror.

The escalation of events was happening too rapidly for you to try to remain steady or angry anymore (those things had only been an out-of-character act to begin with, hadn’t they?) and now you realized, with a sickening finality, that it was only you and Hisoka. Alone. There was nothing and nobody beyond this nightmarish back alley, no life or rationality or anything to ground your mind because you were  _slipping_. Slipping and falling and tumbling down because crazy was catching and you were  _losing_  yourself in it, both mind and body tingling and burning with fever and fear, falling apart beneath his amber stare.

“That expression is wonderful,” Hisoka praised you, his voice overwhelmed with desire, “The look in your eyes-” He paused, letting out a shuddering breath, as if trying to calm himself. “I could devour you right now.”

For whatever it was worth, you tried to compose your face, tried to deny him that enjoyment. Tried, and failed, because despite the threat, Hisoka didn’t speak in the rough and boorish voice of what you might have thought a back-alley attacker would adopt, but something smooth and delighted, sweeter than ever. Doubtlessly seductive. It made you shiver, a horrible disconnect between your intoxication and fear allowing a rush of nerves to tingle down your spine.

It made you sick, choking back distilled plum bile. Slipping, spiraling, swallowing disgust and fear while struggling to even breathe while meeting his eyes. The eyes of a demon, certainly.

“See?” Hisoka cooed, making his point by pushing his hips against you in a slowly deliberate way, allowing you to feel the full extent of his  _desire_.

Hot. You were so  _hot_  despite his cold touch, and the hyper-physical sensitivity your body burned with made you  _shudder_ , a quiet gasp hiccuping from your unsteady breaths. The feeling wasn’t arousal (it couldn’t possibly be something so vile, certainly not), but an uncontrollable response to the salacious action.

“You’ve gotten me all… Excited,” Hisoka finished lowly, shivering lust in his voice. Your breath stuttered, helplessness overwhelming you as your body squirmed thoughtlessly in a desperate attempt to escape from his oppressive fervor. But the cold hands that held you were unholy in their embrace, and the demon’s desire was obvious, demanding satisfaction in whatever form it came.

And those eyes, those terrifying amber eyes, were hungry.

Inhumanly predatory.

“What are you?” your voice, distant and strange to your own ears, asked (begged) in a choked and whiny voice. You hadn’t consciously found the words, rather, they bubbled up unthinkingly from that chilling throught, spoken before you could stop yourself. They made Hisoka’s grin spread so wide it bordered on frightening caricature.

“Who knows,” he replied teasingly.

Letting go of your thigh, one of Hisoka’s hands found purchase in your hair, sliding through the slightly tangled strands before jerking them sharply to the side. It forced your head to tilt, exposing the side of your neck that still felt cold and wet, crawling with the memory of his tongue. The surprise and the pain pulled a raspy yelp from your mouth, chills raising across the overly sensitive skin.

“I’ll give you one chance to guess,” Hisoka said sweetly, speaking directly into your exposed ear. The sound sent tingles down your spine, the offer making your gut twist.

“Stop,” you replied in a voice without breath, your throat constricted as his lips traced down your sweat-slicked neck. Hisoka easily pushed aside any of your attempts to force him away, his lips caressing your skin in a way that was almost intimate.

“Should I give you a hint?” he asked lowly, almost playfully. Hisoka’s teeth (sharp, how could they be so sharp?) scraped across your skin, right above where your rapid pulse fluttered.

Your stomach flipped, a sudden terror in the face of a different kind of threat you couldn’t articulate flooding to the forefront of your panicked thoughts. It made your body thrum with something icy, a feeling too terrible for any words your Ivy League brain could conjure.

“You’re…” You swallowed hard on your dry throat, forcing yourself to speak against the vice that your throat had become. “A demon… Ah-a…  _Vampire_.” The word broke in your mouth, cracking with the ice and dread you were suffocating on.

“Wrong,” Hisoka said, the single word betraying his fervent excitement. With a last swirl of his tongue over the flushed skin, sliding across the hyper-sensitive and oh-so-soft spot over your pulse, he  _bit_  into your neck.

The feeling was of two needles being pierced into the place where your heart beat the strongest, where it fluttered in terror and where your innermost primal sense screamed at you to protect. Your entire body jolted, going tense against him as a phantom shout died in your chest, tears squeezing from the eyes you hadn’t realized you’d shut. You wanted to wrench away, but Hisoka’s hand fisted in your hair kept you from jerking your head, and his body was immovably solid against yours.

Having Rhnull blood (such an amazingly rare thing, it made you  _special_ ) meant that you were no stranger to needles, undergoing all kinds of tests and donations your entire life, but this was different. When his teeth, fangs as sharp as you might imagine would be in the mouth of the hounds of hell, pulled out of your neck, Hisoka’s lips closed around the bleeding punctures.

You were polluted with liquor and adrenaline, but Hisoka sucked your blood (the only true value you had ever seemed to have) straight from your vein like it was the tastiest treat he’d ever enjoyed.  

He was becoming  _aroused_  from it.

Awash with a new type of fear, a genuine mortal terror, your hands buried themselves in Hisoka’s hair, pulling hard on the thick strands to force his mouth off of your neck. He didn’t budge, his only response being an especially loud groan, a sound that vibrated against you as his body pushed you hard enough to the wall that it became difficult to breathe. You could feel his strange and needful desperation, made clear in his inability to stay quiet as he sucked your blood and in the juvenile way he was essentially dry humping against you.

All of it was raw and carnal, lust in every form it could take.

“Ss-stop,” you begged with a hoarse and panicked voice, slurring slightly and blinking tears, continuing to pull on his hair to no effect because there was nothing else you  _could_  do.

Hisoka was going to kill you. Suddenly you felt incredibly sure of that fact because you were certain now that he was a vampire (what  _else_  could he be?), any vestige of sanity in your brain was unable to stop that word from coming to mind or dismiss it as the silly idea it should have been. And, even if he wasn’t, he was just a crazy man with a strange fetish. They amounted to the same thing, really, there was no difference between the two because you couldn’t  _breathe_  and you could  _feel_ your blood, your stupidly valued blood, being drained from your body.

You didn’t want to die.

“Hisoka, please,” you begged again, desperate and breathless, tugging especially hard on his hair. That got his attention, finally, enticing him to pull away with a sloppily wet sound. 

He was breathing just as heavily as you were, eyes closed and dark eyelashes dusting his cheeks, his perfectly shaped lips parted and dripping a dark liquid. With a dizzy and faraway sensation, you recognized that it was your blood, shining in the limited light and striking against his impossibly pale skin.

It created a strong odor in the air between you, metallic and sickening, combining in a potent concoction with Hisoka’s own scent. Sweetly musky, the smell of warm resin that didn’t suit the coldness of his body in any way. Your own sweat and perfume, the floral fragrance of your conditioner exacerbated by the heat of your scalp, topped it all off. It was discordant and confusing, too many scents clashing and clogging your foggy head.

No matter how distracting it all became for a moment, that all changed with Hisoka’s eyes opened. Brighter, more alive than you’d seen, yet somehow lacking some key component of life itself, his demonically yellow eyes shone with undiluted mania, a scattered madness without focus. The hand that had been tangled in your hair released your scalp, sliding down to rest around your neck where your heartbeat pounded double time.

“Golden blood… It’s  _sweet_ ,” Hisoka said, his voice catching on the word unsteadily. Gone was the controlled purr, replaced by an unsteady and trembling tone, his voice hoarse with unbridled need. The fingers buried in your thigh and around your neck tightened threateningly, painfully, but he seemed unaware of it, caught up in the surge of excitement.

“I could drain you right now…” Hisoka’s tongue swiped across his bottom lip, catching the trail of blood before it could fall as his eyes fluttered with the fantasy in his mind. “It’s better than I hoped. You’re  _really_ turning me on… I almost can’t control myself…” Those words broke breathily, desperately, his hands tightening to a truly painful degree as Hisoka fought with the careless hunger and need he so obviously longed to give into.

“Stop,” you begged under the painful compress of his grip, horrified beyond comprehension and nearly entirely unable to breathe. Your body was beginning to go numb.

Escape was impossible, fighting was impossible. Your mind was gone to alcohol or panic or blood loss or a lack of oxygen, the only thought remaining being that Hisoka was was death personified. Death was lust; it was desire. Death had seduced you with a smile and gotten you a drink so he could sip the liquor from your veins and,  _oh god_ , you were going to die. Just like that.

“No… I don’t want to die.”  

Your barely audible objection, your teary and choked admission, drew Hisoka’s gaze back to yours. Courage had abandoned you, surely, but there was nothing you had left to lose by meeting those frightening eyes. Whatever he found, whatever expression you wore, seemed to trigger something outside of his lustful frenzy.

For a second, just a second, Hisoka’s unnerving eyes went round, eyebrows raising in something like surprise and those lovely lips parting. Just a second, because within the span of several heartbeats that look was gone. His fingers relaxed, allowing you to breathe fully. A soft hummed sort of moan left his mouth before it formed into a smile, his angular eyes narrowing. The impish grin, the returned focus of his arousal, reminded you that death wasn’t the only thing to fear from him.

“Don’t worry, it’d be too much of a waste to kill you yet,” Hisoka cooed gently, his voice having regained its seductive cadence, “I’ll just have to find another way to satisfy myself.”

With your mind reeling, constantly trying to sluggishly catch up, your body jerked on nothing more than instinct, reacting to the threat in a mindless attempt to struggle. It was stupid, dangerously stupid, pushing your hips against him in a reminder of his very physical lust.

Hisoka groaned.

“Don’t you see what you’ve done to me?” he asked, the pleasure heavy words the only warning before his lips crashed to yours.

Out of all of the pain he’d inflicted; the momentary oxygen-deprived numbness and then the returned hypersensitivity that could almost convince you the feeling of his arousal between your legs was good, the chaos of your mind revolting against the hundreds of overwhelming sensations and emotions as you tried to keep up; this might have been the worst. It was invasive, a kiss that was all tongue and teeth. A kiss that tasted like your own blood and was initiated out of an aggressive and terrifying lust.

And yet, it was lust all the same.  

Hisoka moaned into it, overwhelming you with his disturbing passion, kissing you so intensely it was almost a violation in its own way. You couldn’t escape, couldn’t fight, no matter what you did, it only fed into the aggression of his libido and the all consuming hunger. It truly felt as if he were trying to devour you, the intensity he forced upon you distracting enough to save you understanding until you felt him  _rip_ your panties out of the way.

Your muffled sounds of objection, of fear and denial, were stolen from your mouth, extinguished by the genuine desperation he kissed you with. To say that it was surreal would have been an understatement, and to say that when Hisoka pulled from your lips to press messy and wet kisses down the side of your jaw while he lined himself up wasn’t full of a terrifying type of intimate affection would be a lie.

It was almost tender, how his lips caressed your skin.

It was almost distracting enough, too, but the slide of his dick through your hyper-sensitive folds was far too  _real_  of a sensation to be pulled away from. 

“No… Nonono..” you didn’t even realize you were speaking, the objecting mantra falling from your swollen and wet lips, until Hisoka tilted his head to look you in the eye.

“Relax,” he told you, the word syrupy with desire. 

Against every single thought in your mind and impulse of your body, you obeyed. 

“Good,” Hisoka praised you sweetly, “I don’t mind if you like to fight, that’s fine… But right now I want to do something  _splendid,_ so you need to behave.” He paused, positioning himself at your entrance. You couldn’t move to stop him, couldn’t tear your eyes away from the yellow spotlight of his stare, all you could do was pull in a sharp breath. Whatever expression you wore made Hisoka’s eyes dance with anticipation, his voice becoming even more affected. “Yes… Your eyes, your body, your  _blood_ … You’re  _special_ , I’ll make you feel so  _wonderful._ ”

Compulsion was gold and the uninhibited excitement in Hisoka’s voice was undeniable, leaving you compliant, dazed for the same reason you couldn’t cry out against the pain when he pushed into you. The position didn’t allow for much in the way of gentleness, but Hisoka didn’t seem too keen for such an inconvenience, either. He was needy, desperate, full of some insatiable craving.

It hurt, his lust-fueled thrust pushing you up the wall to an angle where he could bottom out completely inside of you, splitting you apart while your body remained relaxed, yielding to the pain and his passion. For a second, the scream that begged to be released as one of the last remaining expressions of your pain and fear felt certain to suffocate you, but then Hisoka  _moaned_ , and it made you  _shudder_.

Unable to reconcile that feeling, that tingling thrill of pleasure (his pleasure, it  _had_  to be), with the pain and fear and despair you knew to be your own reality, your mind was thrown to genuine chaos.

It was all you could do to hold on.

Hisoka was boundlessly, ravenously lustful. It was just like his kiss, the aggressive push of his own desires held some twisted form of affection, a disturbing and genuine eagerness to pull you right along with him. He pounded into you in desperate fulfillment of his own needs, but just as tirelessly did he work to make you react.

And you did, of _course_  you did.

Fighting was impossible, stifling your confused reactions to the millions of overbearing sensations that filled you was unthinkable. You couldn’t help but moan when his fangs buried themselves in your neck again, because at the same time Hisoka changed the angle that he entered you, and it felt  _good_. 

When his hand pushed between your bodies to find your clit, the sharp swell of pleasure in your core was unavoidable. 

Being assaulted wasn’t supposed to feel good, nightmares weren’t supposed to make you come, but you knew it was only a matter of time before you gave in because you weren’t strong or coherent and this was too far, too much, and Hisoka was making you feel, just as he’d promised,  _wonderful_.

When you whined, a soft sound of helplessness you honestly weren’t sure how he heard over himself, Hisoka broke away from your neck to press his lips to yours again. They were slick with your blood, the taste and the smell consuming your senses, but the kiss itself was what you could only call  _amorous_. For just a moment, you were lost in a senseless feeling of romance.

But then he pulled away, his face nuzzling back into your wounded neck.

“Your blood makes me feel…  _Tingly_..” Hisoka told you, the words dancing across your sensitive skin. His breathless voice was heavy with lust, but his fingers didn’t stop in rubbing little circles over your clit, threatening to tip you over the edge. “You like it, too, I can feel you tightening… Ah, you take me so well, I-” He cut off in a moan, a sound so overtly sexual you couldn’t help the thrill of heat it invited. “You’ll come for me. I want to feel you… Want to taste it in your blood as I fill you with my  _love_ …”

You groaned, a sound of dissent to his awful words, or maybe a sound of unhappiness because you knew it was true, and you were too far beyond trying to argue. Hisoka pulled back at your lack of real response, catching your eyes without pausing in his maddening movements.

Your blood and saliva were shiny on his lips.

“You’ll come for me, because of me…” The gold of Hisoka’s gaze was intoxicating, appealing to something in your brain that was so far beyond reason it agreed. It was little more than invitation to slip over the edge to his tempting madness, the both of you knew you’d come anyway, but he wanted more. 

And you couldn’t stop it. Your eyebrows pushed inwards, eyes closing to avoid his as those words took root in your brain, your body striving for release now rather than ignoring it.

“Yes,” Hisoka encouraged you excitedly, his fingers rubbing your clit with even more enthusiasm and hips thrusting at a pace you couldn’t understand how he could manage in a position like this. It hurt, but that didn’t matter at all because you could  _feel_ his pleasure in it. 

Your hands held a vice-like grip around his shoulders, your thighs trembling and back getting scraped up by the wall that may as well have ceased to exist as you lost yourself in the sickening cloud of aphrodisia. 

“That’s good, moan for me… Tell me how good I make you feel.”

There was no need for you to meet Hisoka’s eyes to do what he wanted, you were his, entirely his. 

“You… You make me,” you began unsteadily, your eyes closed and one clammy hand moving to fist in his hair, your chest heaving with breath and mind swimming. “Feel… Soo-” A moan hiccuped your words when he began to suck lightly on your neck, drawing up blood from earlier punctures. It hurt, but it was the twisty type of pain. You were going to come, you could feel it drawing up at a rapid pace of fire and desire, a little bit of hurt wasn’t going to stop you. “Hisoka I…”

He groaned against your neck, a sound you could feel  _everywhere_.

Hisoka was, right then,  _everything_.

The pleasure of orgasm pulled tight beneath his ceaseless touch on your clit, buzzing in your head and burning in your core. The feeling left you far beyond able to form a coherent thought, let alone words. The only thing you were capable of to express your demented delight was the moaning Hisoka had asked for, careless and vulgar. He said you would come for him, so you did.

The heat of arousal, the recognizable tension that had been building inside of you, snapped. You weren’t sure if it was warmth, or if it was positive, only that it was a  _lot_. Release was an escape, a blinding white feeling to your overloaded and over stimulated body and mind. And then it was a terror, because Hisoka sank his fangs into your neck right when you were at the peak.

If you had been able to, you might have screamed.

As it was, the only two intensely physical things you could figure out was the agonizing vigor he was sucking your blood with and the fact that he was intending to come inside of you.

Hisoka’s fingers curled painfully tight into your thigh, keeping you still while he fucked you in a growing unsteadily and harsh way. The other hand, raised from between your legs, took a fistful of your hair so he could keep your neck exposed as he sucked your blood. It was vulgar and violent and brimming with some nauseating display of enthusiastic desire, the slapping sounds of skin against skin in the alley and the race of your heartbeat in your ears reaching a feverish height.

He was cruel. Each time he sucked hard against your marked neck, happily swallowing down mouthfuls of your blood, you felt the loss. Each noisy sound of satisfaction as Hisoka drained you in his zealous need to satiate his seemingly boundless thirst dimmed your perception of reality to a pinpoint.

He was profane. You’d never heard a man who was so willing nor enthusiastic about voicing his pleasure. Hisoka’s moans fell in the dynamic range of high pitched and breathy to low, hungry growls, all the while his body surged for release.

He was obscene. With muttered words of praise and pleasure you couldn’t make out from the way he was still sucking and lapping at your blood, Hisoka’s hips finally came to a completely uneven tempo, thrusting deep and pushing his hips flush against yours hard enough to make you to cry out in a far-away whine. The sensation of being filled so brutally made you whimper despite yourself, as did the foreign feeling of a man coming inside of you.

He was fading. All of it, everything, was eclipsed by Hisoka’s mouth on your neck, continuing to drain you of blood (of life) as he rode out his orgasm.

And then it was over.

Hisoka’s lips left your skin, his hands unflexing from their painful grip. He pulled out of you and helped you stand, mostly propped up against the wall, while he adjusted his pants. He spoke to you, saying something with a smile after licking the stray blood from your neck. These things happened, yes, but only in a dizzy sequence of awareness. Anxiety, too, the pain and the fear that pleasure had momentarily saved you from, hit in bursts and flashes.

_“You’re mine.”_

That was what he had said, you realized. It was hard to hear over the overwhelming ringing in your ears and your quick and shallow breathing. The world was tilting, becoming edged by black.

“Are you going to faint?” he asked, frowning now. You were about to say something, maybe to tell him that, no, you weren’t going to faint, but Hisoka’s frown was edged by darkness for only a moment before the world went black.


	90. Vampire Illumi

Anniversary didn’t mean much to you, really.

Just like birthdays and holidays, the day came about the same every year, shrouded in a black veil of misery and unhappiness. People mourned the dead children and spoke about how frightening it was that the killer was never caught, the press so enthusiastically rehashed the events with all of the old pictures and facts.

It was more akin to a celebration than a remembrance, sometimes, as if a strange and unsolved crime was something to be proud of.

So, no, the anniversary didn’t mean much to you, except that it had a way of putting you in a bad mood. 

It felt like a curse, sometimes, a bad omen that followed you as you did your best to get through your day, through your life. There were still conspiracy nuts who didn’t believe that you couldn’t remember what actually happened that night, and others who went so far as to accuse you of being the murderer. The press still reached out to ask if you could recall anything new, all of them waiting with the hope that one day you’d remember it all and agree to do an exclusive.

They still were hungry for the truth, even after ten years.

_Ten years_.

The anniversary came as it always did. It passed with you focusing solely on school and getting through the day as best you could. Reporters and curious parties, of course, made attempts to contact you, leading you to hiding out in the library until it finally closed. As nice as the solitude was, for those few hours, it meant you had to take the late bus home, and now were stuck in the discomfort of walking home late. Usually, you’d do just about anything to avoid having to do that, but the only thing worse than your fear of the dark was the annoyance of wannabe crime journalists.

Still, you really hated to be walking home when the street was unlit and empty. There was something unbearably unnerving about the way your quick footsteps were the only thing to break the oppressive quiet, about the indecisive flicker of the green-tinted street lights above you, and especially about the deadened isolation when passing cars were such a rarity and the houses filling your dingy neighborhood so seldom had lights.

The shadows and solitude made you nervous, the dark creeping up your spine with half remembered dreams and thoughts. Although you didn’t care much for anniversary, it had a way of pulling the nightmares to the surface, making you remember fractured pieces from the story your mind had created to fill in the lapse in actual memory.

Black eyes, cold hands, and a promise. Ten years, and a promise.

You shoved those thoughts away, working to soothe yourself against that nearly laughable paranoia. It was perfectly reasonable to fear the dark, especially when walking out alone at night, but that didn’t mean you to had to buy into your own over-dramatics.

Right. That was what your logical brain told you. 

You were still a little scared.

For the most part, you kept your eyes downcast as you walked, ignoring the dread that tickled your neck and doing your best to reject the thoughts that swirled distractedly. It wasn’t as if you were unaware of your surroundings, though, not even in the slightest. You _felt_ the exact moment when the air suddenly changed around you. It became charged with something intangible, something that made your skin crawl.

You had felt this before.

On the very edges of your vision, about fifteen feet ahead, you saw someone. The suddenness of them appearing, combined with the dramatic change in atmosphere, stopped you dead in your tracks, causing you to almost trip in your haste to still your feet.

Frightened and round, your eyes snapped up, landing upon a figure standing just outside the nearest pool of light. In the same second of an icy recognition you couldn’t understand, some primal instinct of fear rendered you straight-backed and frozen. Air caught in your lungs and your heart worked into a thumping beat. The reaction that overtook you was guttural, your conscious thoughts working in a scattered frenzy to understand something your subconscious had figured the second you saw him.

You had seen this man before.

“Hey,” he greeted you in a casual tone.

You knew that voice, didn’t you? No, you had never heard him. And yet…

“Have you remembered yet?” he continued when you didn’t respond after a drawn out moment of silence.

Remembered? Something,  _something_  danced on the very edge of your understanding, but it was rejected so soundly by the rest of your mind it nearly took your breath away. It was like you didn’t want to remember. You  _really_  didn’t want to.

“Who… Are… You?” you asked in a stilted and breathless voice, your mind in turmoil of this half rejected recognition.

“You made a promise,” he responded without answering, speaking with a friendly lilt to his tone despite the way his expression didn’t change from an impassive mask. It was unsettling contradiction, to say in the least. “Now it’s time for you to come with me.”

He held out a hand, beckoning you to him, but you couldn’t move even if you wanted to take that offer. What you did want was to run. You wanted to scream. You wanted to look away. But his dark eyes were hypnotic, impossible to escape.

A promise, he said.

The doctor’s called it dissociative amnesia, a response to traumatic events. It was the cover that kept you safe all these years, that protected you from having to recall that night, from remembering your promise.

Ten years of ignorant bliss, but now (oh, God help you) you remembered.

_It had been unseasonably hot and wet that year. Memories were unstable, and this forcibly repressed memory especially, but you remembered sweat running down the back of your neck, sticking your bangs to your forehead and dampening your armpits. You and a group of your friends had been playing an especially fun game of kickball that night, living as carelessly happy as kids could._

_When the street lights flickered on, the sky above the broken down buildings you were playing between darkening as violet painted over the yellows and oranges of sunset, you should have gone home. That was the rule, you knew that was the rule, but you had been having so much fun. Your team was winning._

_It was your fault._

_You kicked the ball too hard, causing it to roll to the feet of a newcomer kid that none of you had noticed. You’d never seen him before, and your first impression that he seemed a bit odd. Despite the heat, he wore a jacket with the hood up, a tuft of messy white hair poking out the front, and his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts._

_“Hey, pass it back!” Ronnie called, waving excitedly. The boy, despite his reserved motions and shadowed eyes, began to lean down to comply after a moment. He stopped when another person you’d never seen appeared. An adult, albeit one of the strangest looking adults you’d ever seen, with long black hair and odd clothes. Unsettling, but not as bad as the way the kid responded to him, his entire body going tense._

_The man scooped up the ball._

_“There’s no reason to interact with them,” he said to the kid._

_His voice was slightly hard to make out at the distance, and if_ _there hadn’t been a slight echo in the walled street, you wouldn’t have been able to hear at all. But you could. It was odd that his voice should be so light when he looked so stoic and strange. You frowned, shuffling your feet in discomfort. Your friends were doing the same, although you knew nobody wanted to leave without the ball, it was a new one._

_“You will never see them as anything other than food or potential targets. That’s what dad and I taught you. Even if you resist your bloodlust, they’ll never accept you. To them, you’ll never be anything but a monster. Eventually you’ll kill them, that’s your nature.” He dropped the ball, giving you your first good look at his impossibly black eyes. “Our nature.”_

_Those eyes were death itself._

Blinking hard, you began to take a half step back, swaying on your feet as you forced yourself into awareness of your reality.

The air night air was cool, not thick with the muggy heat of _that_  night. It was a balm to the sweat on your clammy skin as it beaded up. Your neighborhood smelled like grass and street tar, not the tangy scent of metallic blood that stuffed up your nose. Not a nauseating smell that mixed fishy humidity and the dirty stink of trash, a scent that had the bitter edge of wet rot that clung to the ash blackened walls of the streets you played in as a child.

Your empty stomach clenched painfully around the awful memory, your brain shorting out as it tried to stop you from recalling the rest.

“No,” you whispered, “No… No.” Your voice gained strength as you repeated the denial, reaching a volume that you were sure he could hear. This man, this monster, this  _murderer_ couldn’t possibly expect you to-

But you had made a promise.

The rest of the memories flooded in, regardless of your attempts to stop them.

_Within moments of his attention turning to your group, the street had become a brutal scene, children killed in the blink of an eye and left to slump on the ground with holes in their chests. Absolute and pure terror coursed through your veins as he let the last corpse (your friend, they were all your friends and now-) fall._

_Your breathing was frantic and harsh, your heart beating wildly. You’d been the farthest away, spared from his initial rush because you’d been playing outfield, but now you were the only one left._

_The white haired child still stood at the mouth of the street. Watching, just like you. Meeting his shadowed eyes, you hoped, for the tiniest fraction of a second, that he would help, but then his gaze averted._

_Dizzy from fear and shaking so violently you could feel your teeth chattering, you managed to back up as the murderer approached, only for your foot to catch on one of the cracks and send you painfully to your butt. The killer didn’t stop. The light was behind him, making him look every bit like a shadow of death. You raised your trembling hands, as if to ward off the demon, unconcerned with the fact that one of them was oozing blood from the fall. It didn’t matter, it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter-_

_No._

_You couldn’t die._

_You didn’t want to die._

_The surging and intrinsically human need to survive possessed you with the crisp clarity of conviction. There was no hesitation once that need took over, it was as if your body moved on its own. Letting out a choked cry, you stumbled to your feet, lurching upright to escape._

_For the tiniest fraction of a second, you thought you could get away._

_Cold fingers wrapped around your wrist, snapping you back with a harsh jerk of your shoulder and a pained yelp. The murderer pulled you back towards himself, holding your arm up and putting pressure on your wrist until your hand flexed and the ugly gash was revealed to him._

_“Let me go!” you begged in a shout that could nearly mimic anger, pulling on your arm despite the pain._

_The man didn’t release you. Instead, you watched with a horrified transfixion as he leaned down to put his face close to your open hand, an action that almost mimicked a gentleman kissing the hand of a lady. His body moved with an unnatural smoothness, his grip firm, and you could feel the awful aura that surrounded him. It was darkness and cruelty personified, every single nightmare you’d ever had needling into your skin with a nearly invasive pain._

_“Don’t kill me,” you said, your voice lacking some of the courage from before. You weren’t a brave person, not really, and in hindsight you could recognize how small your hand was in his, how high pitched and childish your voice sounded._

_The man looked up, his dark eyes locking on yours as his back straightened._

_“I… I won’t tell anyone that I saw you, I’ll…”_

_What would you do? What could you offer this monster to spare your life? You wished for your mom, suddenly, a longing so strong it was almost as painful as the fear. She would save you, she would know what to say and do. She could fix this, but you couldn’t. You couldn’t!_

_The man watched your face impassively as you struggled, letting out an enigmatic hum when he realized you had no more words to offer._

_“I’ll let you live,” he finally said. Your breath caught on something like hope, a strange flame of emotion considering the circumstances. He raised a finger, a carefully unnatural gesture. “But it’ll cost you.”_

_You blinked terrified tears, your breath hitching in a panicked half sob at the sound of that, but you still found a way to respond, your voice quiet and choked, “What… Cost?”_

_“Your blood,” he said casually, his voice still light and grip unbreakable. He considered you for a moment before elaborating, “If you vow yourself to me, I’ll allow you ten years of normal human life before I reclaim you.” He paused, as if to gauge your reaction. “It’s a good deal… Don’t you think, Kil?”_

_You hadn’t noticed, but the white haired boy had come towards the two of you while the man had been talking, his shadowed eyes focused uncomfortably on your bloody palm._

_“You can smell it, can’t you?” the man asked in the strangely cheery voice he used to speak to Kil, “It’s rare to find blood like this without specific breeding. It will be even better when she’s fully developed… Unless you’d prefer to kill her now.”_

_He proved that offer by holding your hand towards Kil. The boy’s throat visibly worked as he swallowed, and, somehow, you knew he was considering it. Considering killing you. Finally, he forced his eyes away from the wound on your palm and turned his back to you entirely, his body stiff._

_The man hummed again in what you could only call understanding._

_Kil’s refusal gave you a chance, right? Your brain scrambled around his ‘deal’, but it didn’t matter._ _Ten years. Ten years were, literally, an entire lifetime to you. In ten years you’d be an adult, but what concept of adulthood did a child really have? Your sixteen year old babysitter seemed just as mature to you as your mom. Ten years was nothing compared to death, life was nothing compared to your fear._

_“I… I’ll… ” you nodded along with your stuttered words, as if the frantic bobbing of your head would someone convince him that your babbling was sincere._

_The man looked at you with eyes that were black and frightening, but you couldn’t look away._

_“Promise me,” he said lightly._

_“I promise.”_

And now, it had been ten years. You had made a promise, and the grim reaper had come to collect.

To have that giant lapse in memory suddenly filled was, to put it simply, overwhelming. For a moment you were certain it would be too much, that you’d get sick, that you’d shut down. For a moment, you floundered in your mess of thoughts and sensations, your brain trying to wrap around this new understanding.

Eventually, your eyes found his again. The man hadn’t moved. Somehow, that impossible darkness grounded you from unraveling. Ten years. It had been ten years, and those memories weren’t necessarily true.

You didn’t even try to think about the fact that he hadn’t aged, or that the method of murder you remembered matched that of the crime report, or the faded scar on your palm, because those things couldn’t be. None of that made any sense, not even in the slightest. How could you fully believe anything from the perspective of a child? There had to be rationality behind this, there had to be, because otherwise-

_“I promise,” you told him in the shaking voice of a child. It was a vow, and the man made good on his end, wiping your memory of the event and sending you running. You had run all the way home. The police had arrived while you were watching cartoons after dinner, your hand covered by a dinosaur band-aid and your mom unaware of what had happened._

You drew in a heavy breath, trying to force yourself to stop shaking.

“Who are you?” you asked again in as brave of a voice as you could muster, your sweaty and trembling hands forming fists.

_Run_. You needed to run, to get away from this.

“I’m Illumi Zoldyck,” he introduced himself. A second later, he added, “You’ve matured very well. You’ll make a good bride.”

You took an unconscious step back, jaw falling open and eyes widening despite yourself. Oh  _god_ , you had to run, to escape.

“What?” you questioned in a squeak of a voice, fear tinged with a very crawling discomfort returning in full. He was crazy. He had to be. For that matter, maybe you were, too.

You had to run. You could run, you were a good runner.

“It’s traditional for my kind to take human brides.” Illumi began walking towards you with an unnaturally smooth step, his hair flowing behind him. The further he got from the light at his back, the more clearly you could see his face. Those black, completely black, eyes were just as you remembered - No, they were worse, wide and expressionless against the paper white color of his skin. “It’s the simplest way to fulfill your promise.”

Your promise.

Illumi was close now. The nearly painful needling of his awful aura raised chills across your skin, making your breath catch all over again. Fear made you frozen, kept your thoughts tangled and stuck in the void swirl of his eyes. You knew Illumi was going to touch you, grab you, take you. It was almost without thought that your hand formed into a into a fist at your side, your thumb wrapped on the outside just like your mom had taught you.

You had to run before he took you. Spirited you away, in true demon murderer fashion.

You had to escape.

In a split second, so fast you were sure your brain had no control over the movement, you threw an unintentional uppercut, an opportune opening considering the height difference. The blow was aided by the sudden rabid push of adrenaline fueled anger and fear, making him stumble back.

Fuck your promise.

It stunned Illumi. It stunned you, really, but there was no transition period from the connect, just the roar of blood in your ears and the instinctive jerk of your body to rush past him while he was still staggering from your attack. It hurt your hand. It hurt your hand  _a lot_ , but you didn’t care. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered, except escape.

Before you were even fully aware of it, you were sprinting at full speed, your sneakered feet pounding on the sidewalk. You didn’t check behind to see if Illumi was following you, or pause to consider what you were doing. Adrenaline lent you the chaotic energy of fear concentrate, the will to ignore any fatigue or pain that came from pushing yourself so hard.

You ran like a wild animal would, following instinct and the single minded goal to survive.

When your house was in sight, your chest heaving and legs aching and heart pounding so hard you knew it would jump right out of your body at any moment, you could have wept in relief. You dashed up the lawn, unable to stop yourself running in time and simply thumping and collapsing against the door. The seconds it took for you to get your key from your pocket and into the lock might as well have been a span of years, your hand shaking out of control and sweat prickling your skin uncomfortably, the taste of blood in your mouth.

But, eventually, you were in the safety of the threshold and slamming the door behind you without sparing even a single glance back, locking both locks with hands that were nearly vibrating.

What followed next happened in a bubble rush of understanding, a flurry of events to your adrenaline and fear-drugged body. 

You woke up your mom and tried to tell her through your breathless sobs what had happened. You did your best to explain what you remembered through your childishly senseless weeping. She called the police and helped you pull off your silver rings to ice your horribly swollen and bruised hand. She sat in the stark light of the kitchen as you made every attempt to calm down, waiting with you at the table and a cup of tea.

You were still crying and shaking hard, every sudden movement making you flinch and all of the lights turned on to ensure there wasn’t a single shadow to hide within. For scant moments in your conversation with Illumi, you’d found a semblance of calm, but now that it was over you were unable to fight off the terror and disgust and the absolute horror of finally being able to remember, of hearing him say that word. Bride. 

Just thinking it almost sent you back into the frightened tears, but you fought it off as best you could, trying to be as coherent as you could manage. You’d never be able to deal with this through the scope of panic and crying.

Being calm was so much easier said than done. 

“I know this day is hard for you,” your mom began carefully in the quiet, drawing your red and watery eyes up to hers. 

It hit you right then. Even through; or maybe especially through; your fear, you could tell. She didn’t believe you, not really. In her concerned eyes, you saw the hint of skepticism. She thought you were crazy. Maybe you were. 

“But are you sure you aren’t falsely connecting this man to that event? It was ten years ago. I’d just hate to dig it all back up unnecessarily, it’s hard enough for their families…”

Yes, this anniversary, the yearly date that marked their children’s chests being ripped open and left for dead in a back street on a too-hot night, was probably incredibly hard for them. For a second, anger rose up within you at that thought, anger that she was acting as if they were the only ones suffering, anger that your mom wouldn’t believe you, but that faded just as quickly.

Shoulders curling in, you averted your eyes from hers, shaking your head. The anger vanished, and you had no reply. Between the fear and adrenaline, the uncertainty of everything and the unreality of what had happened now that you were washed in the stark and reasonable light of your kitchen, maybe she was right. That would make more sense. Maybe that man, Illumi Zoldyck, had just been messing with you. Maybe he’d triggered false memories.

With a gentle hand, your mom pet your hair, pulling you from that spiral of thought.

“I guess that’s not important right now. All that’s important is catching that man, okay?” she said. You nodded gratefully, trying to even your breathing. 

She smiled tiredly, about to say something more, but the doorbell rang and interrupted her. The sudden sound made you tense up, head turning towards the hall to the front door and body flushed with a cold feeling of fear, all of your work on getting your breathing even ruined.

“It’s probably the police, okay?” she soothed you, “Considering your circumstances, they said they’d send an officer to fill out report. I’ll get it.” She pat your hand gently, standing up and tying her robe more securely.

She was right, you knew logically. Why would a murderer like Illumi wait to be  _invited_  in?

You focused on breathing deeply and wiped your nose, taking a sip of tea with your still-shaking hands. The sound of the locks being undone and the door opening came from the hallway, the officer introducing herself and her partner and your mom’s friendly greeting and inviting them in. You only half listened, mentally preparing what you were going to say, how to phrase your statement to best sound reasonable and sane.

“Would either of you like some tea?” your mom asked as they came down the hall.

“I’d appreciate that,” the woman said, entering after your mom. You must have intended to smile, or at least offer some kind of greeting, but that all died in a void of absolute terror.

He entered behind the officer, his black eyes instantly falling on you in the revealing brightness of your kitchen. There was no shadows to hide within, but Illumi wasn’t trying to hide.

You didn’t realize you were speaking and moving, the word ‘no’ falling from your mouth over and over, until your chair had fallen in your need to back away, your numb legs taking you all the way to the wall and the loud clatter of wood on laminate flooring filling the kitchen. Your mom’s eyes went wide, filled with confusion as she looked at you from the stove, but the female officer looked deadened, her face motionless.

Just like his.

“You were wearing these?” Illumi asked, looking at the table and the little dish where you’d dropped your rings. You didn’t answer, hardly able to focus on his words as your brain flip flopped between panic and misery. “You got lucky.” He looked up. “It won’t happen again.”

Lucky? Your knuckles were bruised from your adrenaline-fueled attack, but there wasn’t a single mark on his perfect chin. 

“G-et ou-out,” you demanded in a gasping voice, pointing at the door with fresh tears in your eyes. 

More concerned with you than their odd behavior, your mom approached you, her hands held out in an attempt to be soothing.

“Calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” she said with worry. Could she not tell? You gestured to Illumi, panicked and pleading, begging her to understand and to fix this. To save you.

“I-It’s hi-im, mah-mom… He-e’s th-ha-”

“You broke your promise,” Illumi cut in bluntly. Your mom looked at him, understanding and fear beginning to edge out her bewilderment.

“Who are you?” she asked him, her eyes flicking between him and the motionless female officer. The woman looked like she was in some sort of trance, dead eyed and staring.

“I’ll give you one more chance to come with me willingly,” Illumi said rather than answer her, his eyes fixed on you and hand held out, beckoning you to him once more. Your mom’s arms wrapped around you protectively, shielding you.

“Like hell,” she said, her voice holding an emotion you’d never heard from her before, an authority and aggression you wouldn’t have thought her capable of. A mother protecting her child. Keeping you safe. “Get out of my home,  _now_.”

Illumi looked at her, then lowered his hand, letting out a sigh.

“Fine,” Illumi said. He looked to his side, at the expressionless officer. “Kill her.”

Kill her.

Time slowed with the order, becoming heavy gelatin around your limbs as you watched the officer draw her gun and aim. You wanted to scream, maybe, but your breath held frozen in your aching lungs.

You were going to die.

It couldn’t have taken more than a handful of seconds, not enough time to move out of the way or even for your mom to properly protest. Her shout was cut off when the officer pulled the trigger.

The sound was air itself being ripped apart, a great and terrible shockwave splitting the room in a minute gun explosion that was unlike any show or movie you’d ever seen. Death, you anticipated death.

But it wasn’t you. 

Rather than the agony of being shot, you felt the splatter of blood and gore hit your skin. It was your mom who slumped, her arms falling from being wrapped around you and body thumping to the floor before you could even begin to comprehend it. Blood painted the floor beneath her in a growing stain of crimson, and your vision swum with it, swam with red. So much red, all you could taste was the dirty metallic color, you were covered in it.

Your ears rung, deafening you entirely with a sharply pitched whine and an angry buzz that settled painfully in your skull. You couldn’t hear the words leave your mouth, but you called for her, you lurched down to get her up, to save her. The two of you had to escape this nightmare, to leave and find help because she was _bleeding_.

Cold hands caught you, pulling you away from your mom as you struggled with confused and jerky movements.

Shaking and sobbing and disbelieving, you felt wild, out of your mind and unable to comprehend a single thing beyond the panicked and icy urgency.

You needed to help your mom, didn’t he understand?

Illumi held you steady, one of his cold hands forcing your wild and wide eyes to his uncaring void of a gaze. You couldn’t hear what he said, you couldn’t hear anything above the ringing between your ears and the roar of your blood.

You grabbed at him with shaking hands, his arms, his shoulders, trying to push him away or fight him but lacking any sort of strength because your mom was hurt and you needed to help her, you needed to-

Collecting a fist-full of your hair to tilt your head and expose your neck, Illumi pulled you up, leaning around you in a strange embrace that you fought with feeble strength. His lips (cold, just like his hands, so cold) pressed to your neck. 

It was confusing to be held, you didn’t understand. It was uncomfortable, prompting you to squirm in his arms. It was urgent that you helped your mom, she  _needed_  you.

None of this made _sense_.

It  _hurt._

The sound of your cry vibrated through your body, but Illumi held you still. Your fingers curled into his arms, your nails digging into the fabric and seeking skin, but he didn’t seem affected in slightest.

He bit into your skin, the pointed feeling of teeth sinking into your neck radiating a red-hot pain. It was like an animal would, with teeth that were far too sharp for any person to possess. Illumi’s arms tightened painfully when he began to  _suck_  on the wound, drawing blood from your body. His iron-vice grip made it almost entirely impossible to struggle as he  _drank_  your blood.

You cried out again at the pain of how vigorously his mouth worked against your neck, but it did nothing. You were helpless, confused, terrified, still brimming with urgency and fear, and you needed to make him  _stop_.

Mom needed you. You needed her. If she died. If she died-

Screaming and shouting tapered off all too quickly into whimpering and weeping. Your strength fled quickly when Illumi was sucking your blood at such a rapid pace, your mind abandoning you to the hazy of confusion and darkness. Cold filled you up in the absence of warmth, and your struggling became nothing more than confused twitching in Illumi’s arms.

“Mom…” you muttered, clearly hearing yourself say the word through the ringing, despite how slurred and distorted it was, “Please don’t hurt…” With a muted memory of urgency, you knew that you needed to say something, but the words felt like sludge in your mind and mouth, impossible to focus on.

You were losing out to the darkness.

Black danced in your vision when your eyes fluttered in an attempt to keep consciousness, the spots on the edges all too quick to overtake the light of your kitchen. Awareness still held a portion of your attention when Illumi stopped, his tongue passing over the bite on your neck when he pulled away. Too much, too quickly, too much, too quickly-

Was it your imagination that for a moment, the very last thing you felt before what you could only hope to be death consumed you completely, Illumi simply held you? His hand pet your messy hair back in place, his arms gathering you up to support the body you no longer had any control over.

If it had been death waiting for you in the deadened blackness that greeted you, you might have appreciated the tenderness with which Illumi scooped you up. As it was, there was a certain kind of horror to be found in the fact that the position of being carried was often called ‘bridal style’.


	91. Vampire!Hisoka Part Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you can't stop me now

The fog of unconsciousness was uncomfortable, but you couldn’t escape from its all-consuming grasp. Pulling yourself out of the heavy haze of sleep was a task so enormous you couldn’t even begin to bear the weight.

So, you drifted.

_You dreamed of a car ride, of when you were a child and would doze in the backseat. Sometimes you’d pretend to sleep, just so your dad would carry you inside._

There was pain, lots of it. You whimpered when it was brought to your attention, but then there was cold on your hot forehead, a comfortable surface beneath your sore body, warmth when you were shivering. There was still pain, but you sighed in content.

_You dreamed of other odd things, scary things. You dreamed of being cold and being hurt, of monsters and fear and running, terrified of something that clawed at your neck._

At some point, you became aware that you were feverishly thirsty. A straw was pushed to your lips, and from it, you were gifted the sweet relief of water. Desperate with thirst, you attempted to take in as much as possible, your body aching to sooth the dry pain of dehydration, but that only got the straw pulled from your lips.

“No. Slow,” a voice reprimanded, ignoring your pathetic whimper. It was too difficult to open your eyes, your body felt far too heavy to reach out and find the straw again, so you obeyed. He laughed.

_You dreamed of home, of doctors visits and needles being stuck in your neck. Blood tests, blood donations, blood, blood blood, it always came back to your blood._

You drifted.

But, eventually, the gauzy fingers of sleep began to strain and fall away, your mind forcing itself through. Wakefulness was, more than anything else, confusing. Uncomfortable. Tearing yourself from the veil of your unconscious brain was difficult, your thoughts so willing to drift. To dream. But you didn’t want to dream anymore.

After struggling for a bit, you got your crusted eyes open. They rolled as they searched for some sort of anchor to settle upon in the dark room you were lying within. It wasn’t a room you recognized, which should have scared you, but you were much too tired to be scared that you couldn’t remember.

This was the type of confusion that favored ignorance.

Still, you very badly didn’t want to go back to sleep. With a grunt, you sat up, taking a moment to adjust as your body objected to the movement. It took everything in you not to fall back onto the pillow and give up for now, but wakefulness had made you aware that you had to pee. Badly.

How wonderful that to your left there was a bathroom, the door yawning open and light off. Although you were still on the edge of sleep and trembling from the strain, unsure of where you were, the urgency of your bladder won out over the pain of forcing your aching body to move. With another ugly grunt and nearly collapsing from the dizzy spinning of your head, you rolled from the bed and onto the floor, stumbling to the bathroom. 

Once the initial satisfaction of being able to empty your bladder faded, you got to your second largest issue.

Thirst. You were so thirsty that your tongue felt like sandpaper. Without seeing any other source, you shoved your head beneath the sink spout to take in messy mouthfuls of water, hands braced on either side of the basin to keep you upright. It helped you feel more awake, ridding your mouth of the nauseating taste of sleep and fighting down the nausea that pulsed in your empty stomach.

Once those problems were more or less taken care of, you stood up and finally got a good look at yourself in the mirror. Aside from the fact that your hair was a wreck and your eye-makeup was smudged around your eyes, obviously having been wiped from your cheeks at some point, you were also dressed in unfamiliar clothes, a tank-top undershirt and a pair of black boxers patterned with red hearts. Men’s clothes, too big for your frame.

Of course, those things weren’t as concerning as the way that your neck was covered in bruises and several little band-aids. Hickeys? When you ran your fingers over the sore skin, an awful feeling settled deep in your gut, something uneasy and sick. The marks indicated that you had a fun night, but you couldn’t remember what had happened, the loose tendrils of memory still yet out of your grasp.

What you _could_  remember was the bar and your friends, celebrating vacation. You had met someone. A handsome stranger… Hisoka was his name. 

Your eyes widened. Had you gotten drunk and gone home with him? At least that would explain where you were and whose clothes you were wearing, although somehow the thought filled you with a bone deep sensation of  _fear_. 

Sluggish and feeling increasingly uncomfortable, you stumbled back into the room on weak legs, looking at the nightstand and by the bed for your stuff. You really couldn’t remember anything, not if you told your friends where you were or what you had done or-

“How do you feel?”

You nearly fell over in frightened surprise, the voice snapping the tension of the silent room. As it was, you let out a hoarse little shout, turning to where you’d heard the voice. Hisoka sat on the floor in front of a low table with a mostly built card house stacked up on the surface. 

In the dark.   

“How long have you been there?” you asked breathlessly, pressing a hand to your pounding heart and mourning the fact that you weren’t wearing a bra. The borrowed shirt was made of thin fabric, and your nipples were painfully hard, giving you an uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability.

“A while,” Hisoka answered cryptically, carefully adding a card to the house. 

You frowned at that non answer, trying not to imagine the behaviors he might have seen while you were sleep, or anything thereafter. Was it just your uneasiness and poor health that made the situation seem strange? Either way, you needed to go.

Searching for your things, your eyes studied his room with more care. It wasn’t  _dirty_ , but the mess was on the level of any girly-girl you’d ever known, with clothes and shoes and other various clutter thrown every which way.

“My friends…” you said, looking back to him, trying to fight the awkward anxiety you were suddenly filled with, “They’ll be worried, do you know where I put my phone?”

“I have no idea,” Hisoka responded offhandedly, looking over his card house at you. Despite the dim lighting, most of it getting in through the drawn curtains on the windows, you could clearly see his eyes. They were gold. Inhumanly so.

The sight of them sent an odd ‘zing’ down your spine, a feeling that made you shudder. It tugged on something else, something important, a thought you could just barely remember.

And then-

“Oh,  _fuck_ ,” you muttered, heavy dread settling in your stomach, a sense of panic spiking your heart rate as the events of the previous night arranged haphazardly in your hazy brain. 

It all began with a card trick. 

Right then, it didn’t matter that you felt terrible, weak and dizzy and shaking ( _you had lost so much blood, you could remember him drinking it from your neck like a-_ ) because as soon as the memories filed into place ( _the wall at your back, his kiss, his touch-)_ , the adrenaline began pumping, your empty stomach clenching.

There was no fore-thinking behind your actions, just the animalistic need to flee. The door was closer to him, but you were already standing up.

In other words, you genuinely thought you had a chance.

Hisoka was standing in your way with an arm out and over the door before you could even grab the handle.

You hadn’t even seen him move.

“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Hisoka told you with playful smile. You flinched away at his sudden proximity, close enough that you could  _smell_  him, a terribly sweet smell. “But, you really should rest.”

Shaking your head in denial, you took an unsteady step away from him, swaying on your bare feet. Moving so fast had made you dizzy, your ears ringing and pulsing with your too-quick heart beat, your empty stomach flopping uncomfortably. The world shifted in front of you, tilting and fading in a confusing way. 

No, not tilting. You were falling.

Arms, cold and strong, caught you before you could hit the floor. Hisoka had moved, again, at an incomprehensibly quick speed. As badly as you wanted to fight, to listen to the fear pounding in your chest and attempt to escape, you were light-headed and weak, and you weren’t sure if you could stand without him. 

“My, my, this is no good… You really should be more careful,” he told you as he helped you to the couch, sitting you down and allowing your head to loll as you fought to get a grip on yourself. Hisoka’s hand was blessedly cold when he ran it across your sweaty forehead, smoothing down your hair, but his touch pulled up a memory in your dazed brain. 

That cold hand on your thigh, your hip, holding you steady against the wall while he-

“Don’t touch me!” you snapped sharply, shrill words brought from your sickened fear and anger. You swatted him away in panic.

Hisoka smiled.

Unable to meet his eyes, you shook your head in an attempt to clear the lingering dizziness, blinking against the bite of tears

“My friends will be looking for me,” you said once you were sure you could speak without the waver of tears.

“I imagine they will,” Hisoka replied casually.

“Everyone saw me with you,” you pushed.

“They did,” Hisoka agreed, holding his hand out to you. In it was a comically normal juice box, the label written in the local language but the contents made obvious by the pictures of fruit. “This will help you feel better,” Hisoka explained casually. Like you were friends, like he was being helpful. Like he wasn’t a vampire who had violently attacked you the night before. 

Unfortunately, he was also right. You’d dealt with blood loss enough to be aware of these kinds of things. 

You didn’t say thank you when you took it, ignoring Hisoka’s smile as you pulled off the straw and its plastic wrapper, jamming into the foil. It tasted good, the juice cocktail a familiar flavor among all this confusion, but you forced yourself to take it slow.

“How long?” you asked.

“Hm?” Hisoka asked, sitting back in front of his half-built card house, cards already in hand. 

“How long was I asleep,” you clarified, the straw pressed against your lip. 

He smiled, adding a card.

“Hours.”

You waited a second for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“What time is it?”

Another card, forming the second to top layer. Disappointment hit you at how quickly you’d drained the box, the straw already gurgling against the bottom.

“I’m not sure.”

You frowned.

“Where are we?”

The last base was set, needing only two more cards to form the very top.

“My home,” Hisoka answered, smiling as if it was funny.

It wasn’t that you were just scared or in pain or hungry or tired, but right then you also felt  _upset_. Angry. Fist clenching around the colorful cardboard, you suddenly threw the empty juice box at his card house. It hit the bottom tier, caving in the carefully positioned supports as he was setting the very top, making the whole thing collapse and flutter down. 

“Tell me, honestly!” you demanded in a borderline whiny tone, only realizing right after those words the horrible childishness of what you’d done.

Hisoka sat frozen, holding the final cards with a surprised expression as he watched all of his work slide onto the table and the floor, scattering everywhere. At least you knew that emotion driven impulse wasn’t something unique to your drunk self. You really were just that stupid.

His yellow eyes rose to yours once all the cards had settled, his chin tilting slightly upwards.

“I wasn’t lying. Maybe you were asking the wrong questions,” Hisoka told you softly. You couldn’t tell if that expression was dangerous, but it wasn’t like you could just back down now that you had his attention. 

“Why did you take me here?” you asked in a voice that sounded far away to your own ears, soft and pleading. 

Hisoka didn’t answer right away, dropping the last cards to scatter with the rest of them before standing. For a moment, you were scared of what he might do as he rounded the table, but he only sat at the opposite end of the couch, his arms splaying across the back and legs crossing casually.

You shrunk beneath his yellow gaze, but he didn’t seem upset, his frown was contemplative. 

“This isn’tideal, you know,” Hisoka said, his voice surprisingly frank, “It’s not hard to find humans who are more than willing to _share_  their blood with me, without all this fuss… If I’m going to play, I prefer playing with my own kind.” He sighed, his eyes lingering on your neck. “Human toys are weak. They break far too easily for my taste.”

You swallowed hard, trying to ignore the uncomfortable implications of his words about ‘humans’ and ‘his kind’.

“Then why me?”

“Isn’t it obvious? It’s because your blood is special,” Hisoka told you with an odd drama and a quirked smile, seeming to be simultaneously pleased and annoyed about the fact, “You’re simply too tempting for me to resist.”

You had no response to that other than unfiltered disgust and fear, your stomach twisting into knots. The juice had helped you feel a lot better, but your hands were still shaking, your breathing fast. 

“At first I wasn’t sure what I should do with you, but I suppose this will work for now…” Hisoka paused. “Aren’t you glad?” he asked. 

“Glad about what?” you asked, guarded. His smile widened. 

“I didn’t kill you… Aren’t you grateful?”

There were a dozen things you could say to that, some of them utterly profane and others nothing more than terrified nonsense. But instead of vocalizing any of that, you folded your arms and forced yourself to be calm. Hisoka was trying to scare you (playing with you?) but you couldn’t let him. You  _couldn’t_. 

“You can’t keep me here,” you finally said, looking back to Hisoka. You weren’t sure if it was a plea, a threat, or a simple acknowledgement, but he showed no real reaction to the words, no matter what your intent. Rather, he was straightforward in meeting your eyes, trapping you in their depthless gold.

For just a second, you had a recollection of those eyes, that look. You could remember the previous night, the commands he’d made. The follow through. To be quiet, to relax, to come for him-

“Maybe not…But you won’t run away,” Hisoka told you. Commanded you. 

His expression was one of control, his chin raised slightly and lips quirked. Hisoka watched emotions flit across your face with interest flashing in those yellow eyes, but nothing more. Like you were some minor entertainment.

“Why?” you finally asked in a weak voice, “So you can use me like a… Like a blood-bag or for sex or-or-”

“If you willingly share your blood, I won’t ask for anything more,” Hisoka cut in calmly, holding out a hand towards you. 

You stared at him, caught off guard, and then,

“What?” 

A strangely anti-climatic feeling rushed over you at the offer, although it was better than the meltdown you’d been quickly approaching. 

“Then why did you… Last night…” You couldn’t say it, couldn’t give a name to what he’d done. “If you could have just taken my blood.”

Hisoka hummed, withdrawing his hand to touch his face as he thought a moment before responding. 

A second later, he smiled, golden eyes finding yours. The energy of the room changed with that look leveled at you, sending chills rushing over your skin and making your stomach twist.

“It’s difficult to resist indulging in such delicious blood without becoming aroused… Especially after you went and got me all  _riled up_ ,” Hisoka explained, putting an uncomfortable emphasis on the last words. 

Almost like he was overcome with nothing more than the memory, he let out a heavy, shuddering breath, closing his eyes for a tense moment. When they reopened, Hisoka seemed a bit more in control, but you only felt more sick after seeing his reaction. Uncaring of that, he held a hand towards you, continuing.

“But, it’s more enjoyable when such matters are more of a give and take, don’t you think? Until you’re willing, I won’t force you.”

“I’ll never be willing,” you told him, jaw and fists clenched as you stared him down with as much confidence lent by disgusted fear as you could.

Hisoka’s smile turned smug, eyes becoming hooded slightly when they met yours. While you refused to allow his yellow stare to force you into backing down, you couldn’t deny the chilling impulse. They were unnerving. Frightening, even now. Seductive.

“Don’t you remember how good I made you feel?” he asked in a purring tone.

You physically recoiled from that question, your eyes widening in disgust.

“Because you _made_  me!” you exclaimed in a mix of unhappiness and anger, “With your…” You looked away from him, gesturing to your eyes and trying to force yourself to stay calm. You didn’t want to remember that, what you felt wasn’t good, it  _wasn’t_.  

Despite your outburst, Hisoka stayed completely calm, raising a hand as he explained, “I simply asked you to allow yourself to accept the pleasure you were feeling. My hypnosis is nothing more than  _persuasion_ , I couldn’t use it to force you to such extremes.”

You leaned back, feeling gutted as you stared at him, trying to determine if that was the truth. The whole time you’d been fueled by the idea that you were blameless, that the pleasure you remembered wasn’t your own, was something he’d tricked you into feeling. If that wasn’t true-

“You’re lying,” you said, shaking your head to rid your thoughts of the alternative.

Hisoka smirked, his head tilting slightly.

“You think so?”

To that, you had no response, and all he had was that unreadable smile.

Eventually, all you could do was look away, trying to think of a solution to this mess.

Escape wasn’t an option, not right now, not when he’d given you such a clear order. You had no idea where your phone (or any phone, for that matter) might have been, but you doubted he’d leave one in this room.

Truthfully, Hisoka’s offer of not touching you in return for willingly offering him your blood, was about as good of a deal as you could hope for from him. Unthinkingly, your hands raised to your neck, to the bandages he had applied over the wounds. The punctures didn’t hurt as bad as the bruising, which ached terribly with every movement.

That wasn’t as bad as your body, however, which was still sore and uncomfortable in ways that went far below the skin.

“Fine,” you said, clenching your jaw and forcing yourself not to tear up. You could find a way out of this, you  _would_ , but not right now.

“All right,” Hisoka said happily, a statement of decided victory and borderline-praise.

You didn’t want to look up, sitting in your little hunch in clothes that weren’t your own in a place you didn’t know with a man who was most definitely a monster. Maybe you should have, though, because the surprise of Hisoka suddenly grabbing your ankle made you cry out, struggling on instinct.

“What are you doing!?” you cried, trying to kick off his grip as he pulled your leg up, leaning down across the couch until his mouth was at the inside of your knee. “You said you wouldn’t-” Although you couldn’t say the words exactly, the desperate fear was clear in your voice, for as much as it should have only been anger. It wasn’t as if you had any real way to fight him.

Hisoka paused, his face already halfway up your thigh, pushing his borrowed boxers up and out of the way.

“You agreed to willingly give me your blood,” he told you innocently, smiling like it was a joke, “I never said from where I would take it.”

You looked down at him, frozen, caught between wanting to fight and fear that if you did, he would hurt you. If Hisoka intended to bite your thigh, that could get dangerous for you very quickly.  

“Nothing more,” you said quietly, reaffirming a deal you had no way to ensure he’d upkeep. Hisoka drew his lips even further up your thigh, inhaling the scent of your skin happily.

“Of course not.”

Feeling you relax, or at least stop struggling and relent to the misery of your fate, Hisoka sent one last hooded look up at you before biting into the soft skin of your thigh. The sensation pulled a pained cry from your lips. You weren’t prepared for the piercingly sharp ache of his fangs, the feeling of them being buried into that tender flesh was completely different from when he had bitten your neck.

It was one thing to target your neck, but your inner thighs were private and sensitive. The cruelty of mixing pain and intimacy, again, made your entire body tense jarringly, your shaking hands clench in the borrowed shirt. Once he had a proper wound, Hisoka began to suck at the punctures.

“C-careful!” you said tightly, trying to resist pulling away. Hisoka smiled against your skin, humming in pleased assent before returning with the slightest bit more consideration.

It hurt, but there was also a deep set feeling of embarrassment. Of shame. There was something awful and deviant about the lewdly wet sounds of his mouth working against your inner thigh. While it wasn’t as if you were some blushing virgin, it was different to see a man (monster, a monster) like him between your legs. It was impossible not to feel terrified and transfixed by the sight of it. Especially when Hisoka made no secret of his enjoyment in the act, sucking noisily and groaning in enjoyment against your skin.

Shameful and painful, yes, but it was erotic, too. In the absolute worst of ways. Seeing his head between your legs, hearing him groan, recalled the memory of his fingers on your clit, of him fucking you against that dirty wall and you getting off on it, despite the pain and the misery and the disgust. Feeling Hisoka’s cold hands holding your leg steady, holding the fabric of the boxer shorts out of the way, led your mind to the obvious conclusion of his mouth trailing all the way up, to his fingers seeking the suddenly overwhelming heat between your legs.

You whined quietly, a sound of despair, dropping your head back so you wouldn’t have to watch him anymore.

As if sensing your lack of attention, Hisoka stopped, running his tongue over the wound and pulling back. Before you could feel any sort of way about the break, he used the fact that your legs were already open to pull you into straddling his hips, sitting on his lap with your chests pressed together. It happened so fast, but Hisoka didn’t hesitate in pushing the neck of your shirt down, sinking his fangs right below the existing bruises on your neck.

It was too much stimulation all at once. The pain of your sore thigh pressed hard to his, the piercing ache of him biting you so close to the places that were already painfully wounded, the brush of your bra-less and hardened nipples against the fabric covering the hard surface of his chest. Worst of all was the distracting feeling of your heated core suddenly situated directly against his hips, and of course he was hard ( _“It’s difficult to resist indulging in such delicious blood without becoming aroused”_ ).

Hisoka had been enthusiastic about sucking the bite on your thigh, but he felt careless now, hungry and desperate. In this position, you could  _feel_ his moaning vibrating against you, sitting like this, you were completely understanding of the intrinsic sexuality of this act, overly aware of the way your body was right up against his.

Blood Loss was already creeping up on you as he so energetically sucked the wound on your neck, pulling even more bruises to the ugly patchwork of them littered across your skin. Hisoka had one hand in your hair to keep your head tilted, but he didn’t need it. You weren’t fighting, your hands merely twisted in the front of shirt as you held on. His other hand was on your hip, bunching up the shirt as it dragged up to your waist and back down again.

“Hisoka,” you said in protest, your voice coming out as little more than a breathless whisper, “That’s enough-” And it was, it  _was_ when you were still recovering from the night before, when your body was already dangerously damaged by his lusts.

Despite that, he just groaned, and that sound appealed to something in your quickly deteriorating mind. You were losing yourself, again, again. Just when you were sure that he wouldn’t stop, that he was far too lost in a blood drunk frenzy and would most certainly kill you (and maybe you didn’t care, because there was something awfully hot inside of you, something _good_ ), Hisoka pulled away.

It made you shudder when he ran the flat of his tongue over the wound, still breathless, bursts of his breath splaying against your overly-sensitive skin. You had your eyes closed, caught up in a strange trance-like feeling with your spinning head and buzzing body. It was a lot to feel all at once, conflicting and confusing and frightening. You didn’t want to meet his intoxicating golden eyes, afraid of what you might see there. Afraid of what he might see in yours.

“You make me feel so  _wonderful-_ ” Hisoka told you, his face pressed to your neck. On the last word, his voice broke slightly, the sound of hunger or desire (what was the difference?) thick in his tone. It frightened you, but there was something else, as well. A warmth that you felt in the undeniable seduction of the way he spoke. As if trying to calm himself, he took in a heavy breath, his nose running over your neck as he inhaled with a ticklish sensation.

For reasons you didn’t dare to think of, the feeling made you shudder.

Hisoka froze after feeling that. Then, as if testing something, pushed his hips up against yours. The proof of his arousal was absolutely clear, pushed for a moment intimately close to your heated core in an reminder of the night before. A reminder of the way you’d felt. The sound you let out in response could only be called a moan, surprised and breathless.

A mistake.

Hisoka laughed when your eyes popped open in shame and shock, his own darkened with lust and humor. For a moment, you felt sure that he’d push for more (was the feeling hope?) but he released you quickly, unceremoniously pushing you from his lap and standing up to stretch.

In the daze of blood loss, you scrambled on the couch, adjusting your clothes and covering the new wounds, hot and embarrassed and  _confused_  (did you dare name the strange twist in your gut disappointment?).

“What are you doing?” you asked, a horribly unhappy tone to your voice. Hisoka smiled over his shoulder, and you were certain for one terrified moment that he could see what you felt (what did you feel?), but he turned away before your fear could be proved correct.

“I’m going out,” he explained smoothly, walking towards the door.

He was leaving. You blinked, still trying to control your breathing and come to grips with what had just happened, jarred by the abrupt change and by the onslaught of emotion you felt, struggling still with the dizzy weakness of blood loss.

“Where?” you belatedly asked as Hisoka opened the door to the rest of the apartment. There wasn’t even a lock, but you knew you couldn’t step beyond that threshold regardless.

“Who knows,” Hisoka replied, looking back at you. With a smirk, he ran his tongue across his lips, eyes dragging across your figure before meeting your eyes. “As long as you intend to be a  _tease_ , the least you can do is  _behave_ while I’m gone.” There was a sort of playfulness to the words, but clearly a threat nonetheless. “If I’m forced to hunt you down…” The gold of his eyes was hard, now, frightening. “Well, that would be a problem.”

“I… I understand,” you responded, still not necessarily following this sudden shift but too afraid and disoriented to argue.

“Good girl,” Hisoka praised you, sparing you once last smiling glance before leaving, closing the door behind him.


	92. Illumi POV

Illumi always found it so interesting to watch, the way you seemed to _bloom_ beneath his touch.

It didn’t take much, either, an inviting pink flush was so quick to spread across your skin when his fingers trailed beneath your clothes, chills raising up in response to the temperature difference. You tensed up, your breath hitching, but those were signs of surprise. You’d melt for him, of that he knew well enough.

“Illumi…?” you asked softly, turning and looking at him with searching eyes. You knew his intentions, yet you hesitated. Even now, you hesitated. It had taken Illumi a while to realize that hesitation and denial were separate. While denial was something to be dismissed or punished appropriately, your eyes now were searching for confirmation. You were looking for his permission.

Such a good wife. Seeing that expression made Illumi especially confident in his decision to reward you, rewarding you for fulfilling your duties as his wife, as a Zoldyck.  

“Take off your clothes,” Illumi told you without preamble, meeting your eyes evenly.

Hearing the order put an expression of embarrassment on your face, an emotion Illumi was less understanding of than the hesitation. There was no shame in doing as your husband asked. What modesty did you hope to adopt when you already belonged to him? You had protested once to that line of logic, something about how undressing was apart of the experience, but Illumi disagreed. Clothes were inconvenient, and it was easier to make you rid yourself of them than do it himself.

There was something pleasing about it, as well, something that had more to do with satisfaction than pleasure. Illumi liked when you followed his orders, and watching you undress yourself had a strange charm, the way you pulled your shirt off with your arms crossed, how you kept your face hidden with your eyes peeking up shyly through your eyelashes.

“Are you… You want…” you stumbled over your words nervously, unable to state his intentions specifically, despite how obvious they were.

“Yes,” Illumi cut in lightly, deciding to make an attempt to calm you with a bright tone, choosing an open handed gesture to match the word. “Is there a problem?” The question wasn’t as lightly spoken, holding the edge of a warning in response to your reluctance. You didn’t deny him anymore, not overtly, but sometimes you chose to make things more difficult.

“No!” you denied, your eyes going wide to meet his, “I just wasn’t sure… After I got… Got pregnant… I didn’t know if you’d still want…” Your voice caught on the words, your gaze averting. Illumi frowned.

“Is there a complication of being pregnant that will interfere with your ability to do as I say?”

“N… No, that’s not…” You bit your lip, shaking your head. “I’m… I’m glad,” you continued, looking up, your hands finally going to the hem of your shirt to do as he asked.

Illumi blinked at the shift in attitude, but let it go without too much more thought. You sometimes didn’t make sense, but that was fine. As long as you did as he told you to.

Which you did, pulling off your clothes and revealing yourself to him. You could be so bold, but tonight you were shy, your skin flushed and breathing fast, your eyes cast down and lips pursed. A sultry seductress you were not, but Illumi was didn’t mind the guileless way you presented yourself for him. He liked how you so obediently stripped yourself bare as he watched, shedding clothes and pretense for him, only him.    

There was also the undeniable matter of the physical appeal.

Arousal was a strange pair to need. Illumi  _needed_ physical satisfaction in order to function properly, but arousal was something unique to his interactions with you. Attraction was a factor as well, the way your body drew his eyes. Tonight, Illumi found himself focusing on your fluttering abdomen, but it was just the same as it had been that morning. It was far too soon to see any dramatic changes with the pregnancy, although the doctor had been clear that there would be many. Physical, hormonal, mental, your entire body would be shaped by his influence.

That remote and tantalizing thought was wiped from his mind as you climbed on the bed, shooting a glance behind your shoulder at him. More than anything, Illumi recognized the look as playful, but it was as powerfully seductive as any hooded pout could hope to be.

Ridding himself of his clothes as well, Illumi joined you.

Warmth radiated from your body, your eyes a little too wide and heart thudding audibly in the silence as he held your gaze. For a moment, Illumi found himself mesmerized by how responsive you were when he reached out and touched you.

Just the slightest pressure of his fingers as they slid between your breasts and down your fluttering stomach made you shudder, your body squirming enticingly when they detoured to your hip and down your thigh. Although Illumi was aware that you wanted to, you said nothing, nor did you stop him.

Your obedient compliance made it harder to restrain himself. No matter how many times he had taken you, there was always a deeper desire to simply have you outright. Using you as a means to satiate himself, however he saw fit. You’d let him, too. The only resistance you offered anymore was verbal, asking Illumi to slow down or be more gentle when need overtook reason, but it was so easy to stop those complaints. All it took was a hand beneath your legs and the right angle and words would evade you altogether, Illumi knew that very well.  

But rewarding you was different, and he had become curious about something.

“How many times do you think you can come for me?” Illumi asked you suddenly, looking up to meet your eyes once more.

You froze, lips parting without sound and body tensing up anew.  

“I…. I don’t know,” you finally responded, your words quiet. Illumi nodded, he’d expected that sort of answer. “Why?” you added a moment later. Apprehensive.

“Your body’s capability for extremes of pleasure surpasses mine, I’m curious to know by how much,” Illumi responded easily, tucking his hair behind his shoulder so it wouldn’t get in the way, “It’s important to know my wife’s limits, so I can better reward you in the future.”

For reasons Illumi couldn’t even begin to guess at, nor did he really care to, you looked a little weary at his statement, but you made a soft, sweet sound all the same when his mouth landed on yours. You put up no struggle in submitting to his kiss, to being pushed until you were laying among the pillows. The only protest of him biting your lower lip was in a sharp moan, your hands fisting in the sheets.

Illumi was glad that you resisted the urge to grab his hair, that you weren’t quite so careless as to require being bound.

Yet.  

One hand braced on the bed beside you, Illumi used his other to slide up and over the curve of your waist, outlining your breast before moving inwards and tracing your nipple, rolling it into a peak. That earned him another soft sound, enticing Illumi to leave your mouth, his lips moving down your neck and easily seeking all the spots that made you react. By the time his lips closed around the nipple he’d left unattended, you were reacting to his touch freely.

“Ill-lumi…” you said softly. The breathily broken way his name fell from your mouth was a particularly pleasing sound. It sent a stroke of heat through him, a remarkably physical sensation Illumi knew to call desire.

Again, he felt the urge to bury himself between your legs, to allow himself to indulge in the heat he’d find there and have you  _screaming_  his name.

Instead, Illumi’s hand slid from your breast down your fluttering stomach, laying flat with his fingers stretched. He couldn’t feel any life, not yet, but knowing it was there was enough. Knowing that you were so intimately filled with him, that you were truly a Zoldyck, was enough to make his cock twitch distractingly.

Leaving your abdomen, Illumi’s fingers trailed further down, seeking the desired warmth between your tense thighs. All it took was a hint of teeth at your nipple and your legs opened for him, allowing Illumi’s fingers to find your swollen clit. You gasped sharply, then, your hips bucking into his hand, as if his touch was surprising.

You gasped again, this time the sound vaguely sounding like Illumi’s name, when he began to move those fingers.

Illumi knew your body, he could feel how tightly wound you already were, how ready you were to come for him. It made sense, considering the only satisfaction you could ever get was with him, but there was something deeply pleasurable about knowing how easily he could unravel you.

How desperate you were for his touch.

How desperately you cried out, unbelievably sensitive, with each mark Illumi sucked into the soft skin of your chest and neck, acting on the compulsion to mark you.

To mark you as his - You were entirely his in every way, now that you were carrying his child, even more-so than on the night you had been wed, because now you were full of him. Now, he knew your body completely, inside and out.

Now, Illumi’s claim was unquestionable.

There was a strange excitement to the thought, to the pleasure of possessing something, somebody, so completely.

Illumi wondered if you could feel it, if apart of your building climax was in knowing who you belonged to. Unsure of where to settle, your hands fisted and flexed against the sheets, reaching for Illumi’s arm, then the fallen strands of his hair, before raising up and covering your face as you came.

You shook against him, your hips pushing into his hand and back arching, his name managing to make it past the annoying barrier of your hands before he reached out with his spare hand to pull them away.

Illumi didn’t stop there, ignoring your pleas for him to do so. Instead, he tilted his head up from your marked chest to watch your face as he continued to rub tight circles against your clit, pushing you past one orgasm and into the shuddering wake of another while you protested weakly, doing everything you could to not reach out to stop him or touch him.

Such a good, obedient wife. Even if you protested, you took what he gave you, reacting as he wanted.

A squeaking sort of cry left your parted lips when you came again, an expression that looked a bit more pained than pleasured on your face, your head thrown back into the pillows with your hair a wild halo around it.

“You’re doing very well,” Illumi told you with a building mania he could recognize as his own lust, happy to find how wet you were when he pushed two fingers into you. Your hips jumped into the sudden obtrusion, a yelp leaving your mouth and your thighs attempting to close before you thought better of it and forced them open with a muffled groan.

“Illumi,” you whined, your breathing unsteady, “I want… To feel  _you_ -” Your voice broke into a moan when he pulled his fingers out, curling them with a practiced understanding of your body. You responded so perfectly, your face expressing the pleasure you felt without any shred of decency. Only - No,  _entirely_  for him.

“Not yet,” he said, pushing his fingers back into you and making you whimper.

Despite his denial, it was a compelling offer. Feeling you wrapped so tightly around his fingers, wet and warm and soft, only invited thoughts of what you’d feel like around his cock, submitting to him in both mind and body, yielding to him just as you were meant to.

But you tired out so easily that way, and this was a reward.

Using his other hand to rub your clit in time with his fingers as they thrust into you, Illumi set a fast pace in making you come again. He wasn’t concerned with teasing it out, he wanted to feel you orgasm around his fingers, to make you cry out his name, to forget everything and everyone but him.

It wasn’t hard.

The closer you got, the more difficult it seemed like it was for you to control yourself. Your thighs trembled with the desire to close, tensing and shaking with effort, your knees bending and heels digging into the mattress. Your hands twitched and shook, refusing to be still as they twisted in the sheets and flexed with the palms up, reaching to grab Illumi before you stopped yourself.

Illumi watched, almost fascinated with the way pleasure drove you wild, your eyebrows furrowing and lips parting, moaning his name and begging for him in increasingly incomprehensible words.

You came  _hard_ , milking his fingers in a way Illumi would think to call an attempt to seduce him if you weren’t clearly beyond something so devious.

He didn’t bother waiting for you to come down very long before forcing your legs further apart and going to work on your clit with his tongue. You were astoundingly wet, still shuddering and tightening around his fingers with the fallout of pleasure, but Illumi was committed. He wanted  _more_  of your pleasure, all of it. It belonged to him, anyway. Your panicked and dismayed moans only spurred him on.

“‘Lumi… ‘s too much, please, I-”

He hummed, sucking on your clit, and any attempt for coherency shattered. More pleasure was better, right? Three was nowhere near what he knew you were capable of.

Even though Illumi couldn’t see you, he could feel how hard of a time you were having with controlling yourself. With keeping from grabbing his hair and clenching your thighs. How overwhelmed you were as he forced another orgasm on you, fresh off the heels the last.

It pushed you into a frenzy, constantly wanting to grab at him or close your legs or push your needy hips into his tongue and fingers, but knowing you weren’t allowed to do any of those things. All you could do was beg, beg that he stop or let you come again or fuck you, beg for anything other than what Illumi was doing as the wildness he had noted reached a feverish tempo of desire.

By the seventh (eighth?) it seemed as if you finally had enough, your hands giving into temptation and entangled in his hair, attempting to physically pull him away. Illumi froze.

“Have you had enough already?” he asked you, pulling back. Your trembling hands dropped and retreated, as if you’d only just become aware of your mistake. Wide eyes glazed with tears, red cheeks and lips, your skin shining with a layer of sweat, and your breathing uneven and harsh, you looked quite debauched. It was a reminder of Illumi’s own desire, and the erection he’d been more or less ignoring in pursuit of his goal.

“‘S too… Too much,” you said in a raspy and heaving voice, “Just need… A moment…”

Illumi considered that a moment, watched as your eyes closed and you attempted to steady your breathing, your shaking hands attempting to wipe the sweat from your red flushed skin. The sight of you like this was depraved in a way he wouldn’t normally think could be attractive, but to have you so truly at his mercy was unbelievably erotic, covered in marks he’d left and shuddering with the pleasure he’d given you.

It tempted a loss of control, as you so often did without even being aware of it.

Moving with that temptation, that infuriating temptation, Illumi’s hand, shiny and wet with your arousal, dropped to his dick, stroking himself while his black eyes watched you tremble and gasp beneath him.

It truly was fascinating, the way your skin colored with your pleasured flush and bruised red and purple, the way your lips stained such a pretty shade, the bottom one swollen from his teeth. Illumi felt a genuine interest in how desire corrupted your mind into something so malleable, something so weak yet enjoyable.

Everything about you bloomed for him, your body, your mind, the child created from his love, from the emotion he felt when he looked down at you now. Not just lust, but something unique. A strange tenderness held only for his darling wife.

For you.

Illumi readjusted himself, falling to his elbows above you and causing your eyelids to pop open, pulling you from your brief respite now that his desire had bubbled too far over his limit. You looked up at him with eyes that were wide and surprised at his sudden proximity, dazed with a mindless type of lust and maybe even affection.

A nice expression, a fascinating one.

“Illumi…?” you asked in a breathless voice.

“Did you think we were done? No. Not until I say,” he responded, his light tone in an odd controlled harmony to the quiet reverence of your voice. Emphasizing his meaning, Illumi ran the tip of his cock through your slick folds, making you shudder. That, too, was beautiful in a way. An inviting opening of your body’s unconscious reaction to his touch, the type of which he was quick to take advantage of. “You’ll come for me again, but this time I want to feel it.”


	93. Chrollo Saying I love You for the First Time

“I love you.”

Chrollo’s answer, his response to your helpless question of  _why,_  was the final tap of the hammer. With it, he hit the head of the chisel, so crudely positioned against the protective cage of bone that fluttered with your harsh breaths, and drove the point deep into your heart.

The metallic  _whack_  rung in your ears, the physical sensation of your body giving way to his weapon with a  _crack_  followed by an awful  _squish_ nearly knocking you over. But, when your fingers rose to inspect the wound, there was no blood. There was no wound.

Nothing, nothing. So why did it  _hurt_?

Words, all of your angry and terrified words you’d collected to confront him with, all of your disgust with the man Chrollo was in reality, got swallowed up by a vacuum void of silence in the shock of that pain. Blood rushed through your ears in a dull thrum, but that didn’t stop his voice, those three little words, from echoing in the static.

You had been fidgety and full of restless energy before, but now you were still beneath his eyes. Unable to move when Chrollo took three careful steps towards you and your limp and shaking hands in his. They were warm. And he… He was solemn. All of the playful youth was gone from his face, round eyes dark and unreadable.

“That’s why I lied to you,” Chrollo said.

The pick twisted, seeking the undamaged tissue in what remained of your heart. A tear began its way down your face, following the dried tracks of salt from earlier. Your mouth gaped as you fought to get even a single word out through the unrelenting pain.

 _Stop_. You would beg him to stop, if you could only get in a full breath. If only you could find the strength to speak, to plead with him to  _stop_   _talking_.

These were the wrong words, the only ones that could hurt more than the truth.

“I had hoped you wouldn’t find out like this… What was it that tipped you off?” Chrollo’s eyebrows quirked upwards with the question, teasing an expression you were more familiar with, before falling back into place with a low hum in response to your lack of answer. “Perhaps I should have been more truthful with you, once I realized my feelings…”

How could Chrollo say these things? Talk of his feelings now that you knew of the person he truly was, after you had learned that your entire relationship had been a farce? He’d used you as nothing more than a convenient tool for his Troupe’s latest heist.

Why were you still listening?

“I didn’t expect to care for you so much.”

Those words robbed you of breath all over again. They were too cruel, unutterably so. You  _needed_  him to stop speaking in his soothingly enticing voice, would give anything to end it right then.

But, even with the needful conviction of that plea, you did nothing. Your only movements were the tremble of your bottom lip and the slow-motion parody of the denial you wanted to express in the side to side motion of your head. You  _wanted_  to scream at him, to demand that he stop looking at you, but the sound was lodged in your throat. The tense desire to pull your clammy fingers from the solid warmth he provided itched across your skin, but you couldn’t move.

This pain, the words he was saying, were all wrong. 

This wasn’t why you had come here.

With a nearly masochist yearning, you wished for Chrollo to quit toying with you and finally tell you the honest truth, to say you meant nothing to him just like you meant nothing to anybody else. Because these lies, these endless and terrible and cruel lies, would be the death of you. Surely they would. Lies like these could blind you with their beauty and enchant you with hope. They were the worst type of lies, you knew that beyond a doubt.

And yet-

“Stay with me,” Chrollo asked, low and intimate and frighteningly appealing. 

It was wrong for him to ask that, now that you had figured it out. He was meant to discard you, to throw you out. 

But you didn’t want to leave, did you?

“No…” Your refusal was weak and barely audible, you doubted he actually heard the word. Weak, you were so  _disgustingly_  weak. If you meant to say no, you’d walk away now. You wouldn’t stay and be his dupe any longer.

But you did.

“Why not?” Chrollo asked, a gently curious question that made your denial seem out of place. 

There were hundreds of reasons to go, and the only reasons you had to stay were bad ones. None of them found a way past your spinning head, which was clouded by the unshakable hold of his gaze. 

“It’s human nature to want to be loved,” Chrollo continued at your non-response, pulling you closer. Just a bit. Just enough to feel his warmth. To smell him. The action almost made a point of his words, which were absolutely right. You knew the truth of that statement better than anybody, didn’t you?

And even you… Especially you…

Love.

It was only a word. A lie easily spoken to keep you under his control. Four letters bearing an incredible weight to you, but what value did anything have to a professional thief?

“No,” you repeated. Another singular word with a debatable amount of worth. What were you really refusing, with a voice that had become thick with something like shame?

“You want to be loved,” Chrollo responded, more insistent. 

Of course you wanted to be loved. Sometimes more than anything.

That desire made you an easy mark, it made you weak, it made you  _hurt_.

Fresh tears burned at your eyes, spilling over when you closed them against the sight of Chrollo’s face, of his eyes. It was too much, the hundreds of conflicting thoughts bleeding you out of any will to resist.

And now that it was all unraveling came the worst of it, an unhappy truth that remained in your spinning mind. It was the nasty little thought that if you had truly wanted to escape Chrollo, you wouldn’t have sought out this confrontation. Still, if you were given the choice between the pain you’d so recklessly sought out and _this_ , you could at least say that there was something nice about these lies.  

“I love you,” Chrollo told you, his voice low. His lips pressed a kiss to your forehead, tender and sweet.

Maybe you, desperate and foolish you, could believe such a wonderful lie if it was one that promised love. Maybe a lie like this would be all you’d ever have. 

“I love you too,” you told him in return.

And maybe you, desperate and foolish you, could believe that was a lie, too.    


	94. Vampire Illumi Part 2

Blood loss wasn’t enough to keep you out for too long. Instead it merely distorted your awareness, strung it together and pulled your thoughts apart into a confused mess of raw emotion and sensation. Your eyes were crusty with dried tears as they blinked into an alien darkness, your nose filled with the scent of leather and something sickeningly metallic, your head lolling back from your slumped but seated position.

Upright leather seats, the low thrum of an engine-

A car?

At first, clinging to consciousness was difficult, the abyss tempting to draw you back in, but there was an abrasive sense of wrongness that kept you alert. Something, everything, was so terribly  _wrong_.

Laid at an awkward angle against the headrest, you turned your head to the side, trying to make out shapes in the dark as your brain struggled to make sense of it all.

Which came first, the influx memories that led you step by terrifying step to this moment, or the visual trigger of his inky black eyes reflecting off of the limited light of the car? Either way, there was no rational thought or consideration after the connection was made in your sluggish brain.

With your mind still spinning and body ungainly with nauseous disorientation, you threw yourself at the door to open it, your sweaty hands running along the interior to find the handle to escape the car. It didn’t matter if you were on the highway going eighty miles an hour, or if you were already hours away from home, all you could think was that you needed to get out. To escape  _him_.

Him, a murderer, a monster, a horror beyond comprehension-

“What are you doing?” Illumi asked you with the vaguest hint of curiosity. His disarmingly casual voice broke the humming silence of the cab, the calm tone setting your entire body to a shaking tension and your skin crawling with chills.

“Let me out!” you responded in a frantic, slurring voice, refusing to turn around or stop jiggling the handle in the hopes it’d suddenly give to your desperate movements. Dry and swollen, your voice strained for a shout but emerged as little more than a breathless plea. “Unlock.. The door!” You called to the driver. The person’s head didn’t even twitch, reminding you of the lifeless policewoman Illumi had used. A puppet.

Desperate, unbearably desperate, you tried again, pushing at what you assumed to be the unmovable lock and wiggling the handle again.

Useless.

The attempt at rational escape so easily gave away to overwhelming helplessness, your hands resigning to simply hitting the door as fatigue and despair took over and your uneven breathing hiccuped into thick, choked sobs. Even if you managed to escape, where would you go? What home could you claim to have without-

Without her.

The event replayed in your head, flashes of the scene, of her voice, her expression when she defended you. Other things, too, a lifetime of memories with your mom, a million smiles and words and moments the two of you had shared. But they were stained by the blood you could still smell, by the ringing gunshot that still echoed in your ears. All the lovely, warm thoughts turned sour. Sickening. For every expression of hers you could picture, a dozen more memories of her dead eyes staring blank and open up at you, begging for your help, filled your head.

“Let me out,” you begged again, slumped against the locked door, your fevered forehead pressed to the cooler glass of the window.

“You made a promise,” Illumi responded, unmoved by your display. He didn’t sound even half the monster you knew him to be, speaking in a voice you’d almost call pleasant if it didn’t made your very spine shudder.

“No,” you practically moaned, shaking your head in blind denial against his statement.

 _I promise_.

“I was… A kid, I didn’t know, I didn’t…” you lapsed into another shaking sob, the skin of your neck painfully pulling at the almost forgotten wound with each frantic turn of your head. “I never… Never agreed to you k-” Painful grief washed over you enough to make your breath catch, but anger lent it a sharp edge. Tense with the emotion, you finally found the strength to turn to him. With eyes slightly more adjusted to the dark, you could make out some of Illumi’s pale features, the minimal light making him look even more inhuman than in the stark light of your kitchen. “You  _killed_  my mother.”

Illumi’s expression didn’t change, his inky eyes turned towards you.

“I didn’t,” he deflected easily, no hesitation in the cruel denial, “She died because of your inability to keep your promise.” Illumi paused, his head cocking ever so slightly as he added, “Perhaps I should kill you after all.”  

The casual consideration given in the way he spoke of killing you made you recoil, despite everything that had happened that should have warranted you having a desire for a quick death. But, if the pounding of your heart was anything to go by, you really, truly, did not want to die.

“Hm… But killing you would be a waste,” Illumi continued, his voice taking on a different tone, a slight frustration, “It’s difficult to find blood like yours, you know. That’s why I offered you such favorable conditions. I see now that I was wrong.”

“What are you… What are you talking about?” you asked.

Somehow, your question, or perhaps the pathetic tone in which you asked it, changed his entire demeanor, removing the odd air of contemplation from his posture. Whatever he gleaned from your words focused Illumi’s attention entirely on you.

And that was a very bad thing to have.

“I spared your life on the condition that you swore yourself to me.” Illumi’s voice was matter-of-fact, dangerous in an unnervingly casual way. “To put it plainly-” He turned towards you as much as the bench seating of the backseat allowed, moving even closer, boring down on you while you flinched even further into the unyielding door. “Your life is entirely contingent on the agreement you made to be mine.”

Illumi was close enough now that you could practically feel the cold that radiated from his unnaturally white skin, the feeling of it suffocating in the limited space of the backseat.

“Get… Get away,” you demanded, your shaking hands rising to push him back. Illumi caught them in his cold grasp, his fingers wrapped in an unbreakable grip around your wrists.

“Don’t fight me,” he warned, “If you resist, I’ll assume you’re breaking your promise and have no choice but to kill you.”

You could hardly see his face, the scant light only illuminating one side, but you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Illumi meant it. He would kill you. The terrible thought made your hands limp, all your strength chased away by the hollow icy feeling that was mortal terror.

“That’s right. You don’t want to die,” Illumi continued in an uncomfortable mockery of a soothing tone, “As long as you’re obedient to me, I’ll have no reason to kill you.”

Obedient to him, a monster. The thought was repugnant, but the idea of death was even more unthinkable.

That left you empty. Without fight. And without fight, what did you have besides weakness? Besides the tears? They prickled at the inner corners of your eyes before spilling; hot, fat drops tumbling over the edge before sliding down your cheeks as you stared down the demon who had haunted your nightmares for the last decade. You didn’t want to let him see this weakness, but you had nothing else to hide behind. No anger, no righteous fury, just the pitiful despair and a sickeningly childish need for your mom.

“I understand…” you got out in a whisper through your swollen throat, squeezing your eyes shut to regain some measure of privacy, in a last ditch attempt to hide. “S-so let me go.”

“Good.” Illumi sounded  _pleased_.

To your surprise, he released you.

To your horror, he did not move away.

You had nowhere to retreat when Illumi brushed your hair back from your neck, the other hand tilting your jaw up so as to expose your neck that still ached with the marks from his teeth. His  _fangs_.

Considering the dozens of other horrors that had happened to you that night, it wasn’t exactly surprising that you hadn’t considered one of the worst of them, even if you acknowledged the wounds. The memory was slotted right in the midst of the worst pain, when your ears had been ringing with that fatal gunshot and your clothes splattered with her blood. The memory of him pulling you close in what could almost be mistaken as a lovers embrace and biting into your neck, the distinctly nightmarish memory of Illumi drinking your-

Oh  _god_.

“Please don’t,” you got out in a tight voice, your body trembling as you held as rigidly still as you could to avoid pushing him off the way you very badly wanted to. Now that his mouth was so near your neck again, you could remember the pain when Illumi’s teeth sunk into that tender flesh, the fleeting sense of reality as he drained you of blood.

“You don’t have the right to deny me in this, your blood is  _mine_ ,” Illumi told you lowly, the air of his words brushing across the wound, making you shudder despite yourself. The action inadvertently pushed your body against his, awkward as the positioning was. It made Illumi pause, calling attention to the human implications of his touch.

Somehow you found it within yourself to let out a small, embarrassed yelp when he  _licked_  the wound on your neck, the strange feeling a different type of horror compared to the rest. You recoiled, unable to stop your bodies natural reaction of flinching away. Illumi caught you from moving too far, pushing the hand you used to defend yourself against the cold window and intertwined his fingers with yours.

“Please  _don-_ ” your pleading words cut off with a hiss of pain when Illumi bit into your neck for the second time that night, taking no care to avoid the already sensitive area when his razor-like teeth punctured your skin.

This time, Illumi wasn’t possessed by the rabid vigor of earlier. He coaxed blood from the fresh wound with a certain type of methodical efficiency, drawing out the pain as his mouth worked against your neck. You didn’t dare move, not with the threat of his fangs so imminent. All you could do was stifle the soft sounds of pain and keep still. Endure it. And maybe you could have stayed that way, painting yourself as some tragic martyr in your mind as reality found itself lapsing, if he hadn’t dropped your hand, his fingers pushing up your shirt to curl around your waist. 

Holding you.    

To suffer Illumi’s violence without being able to defend yourself was one thing, to be hurt by the demon who would callously order the murder of the person you loved the most in the world seemed a fitting punishment for your series of mistakes, but to be victim to this forced intimacy was another.

It made you remember a word that had made your heart sink. Bride.

Illumi’s hand was cold on the flinching skin of your stomach, his fingers digging into the softness there while the opposite ones stayed tangled in your hair, keeping your throat bared. Despite the sudden touch, he didn’t falter in the careful method with which he drank your blood. It was as if he was aware of your weakness from the earlier attack and went slowly to compensate, but also as if he wanted to draw out your pain and suffering.

But then, in complete contrast to the inhuman act of violence, Illumi held you in a way you could almost call tender, or at least as much as the cramped backseat allowed. The caress of a lover, almost.

Already feeling dizzy again, your body giving in to the merciless treatment without reprieve, coherency was ever fleeting. Illumi had made a threat about fighting him, before, but now those words felt distant. Without weight. His touch was making you feel  _ill_ , making your skin crawl with the need to escape from it.

“No,” you whispered, the hand that wasn’t awkwardly pinned by his torso trying to remove his grip from your skin, “Don’t touch me, stop-” There was no strength behind your words, just more wavering weakness and the unhappy tears that betrayed the return of that twisting nausea to your stomach. Illumi cut them off by securing his lips against the wound and sucking  _hard_ , making you yelp once more. The hand beneath your shirt made a mock soothing motion, sliding from your waist and over your fluttering rib cage in cold circles.

So cold.

Not just Illumi, but you as well. The small amount of light in the cab became blurred by the black orbs as they cornered in your vision, your breath becoming even shorter. Death, for the second time that night, seemed to be inevitable.

Illumi pulled away.

He left you blinking away the dark spots, your shirt haphazardly pushed up and your hair a mess, a second wound aching painfully right below the first, and short of both blood and breath. But, more than any of that, Illumi had left you  _alive_.

Was that good? Your mind wasn’t clear enough to tell, it was barely clear enough to command your sluggish and heavy body to breathe. Your eyes fluttered shut under that weight. So, so heavy. Too many things had happened, you couldn’t deal with it all, not like this, not-

“No, stay awake,” Illumi told you, piercing the comforting fog. 

You groaned, unmoving as you slowly accepted the darkness, and its promise to take away the thousands of discomforts that plagued you. It was better this way, better to stay in the dark, now.

From somewhere far away, Illumi pulled you upright with a handful of your shirt, steadying your head with the other hand. This was enough to rouse you, at least slightly.

Then, he was kissing you.

Having lost as much blood as you had, having suffering as much trauma as you had, the first conclusion your weakened mind drew was that this was a lie. A dream. A fabrication of the darkness. Too awful to even comprehend.

Illumi held your head tilted to provide the best angle for his mouth to fit against yours, his lips soft in their steady press against your own. When your mouth parted for him, an action made without any thought on your end in the daze of questionable reality, you could taste your own blood.

Shocked and sluggish and very much doubting your mental capacity, you didn’t even think to fight before he had already pulled away. Illumi’s face was so close, his eyes open. Frightening.  _Real_.

“What… Why did you…” Fear colored your words, a starburst of disgusted shock striking your heart as you realized in full what had just happened. 

The taste of blood lingered on your tongue.

As if surprised that you were still so close, Illumi released you so you could cower back, although you could still feel the sensation of his lips against yours. It was almost more real than the pain of your neck, tingling and searing all at once.

“Isn’t that how they did it in the stories you used to like?” Illumi asked, oddly earnest for a moment, his head tilting. While you were still gaping up at him while trying to figure out whatever he meant by that, Illumi answered in a more direct tone. “We’ll be arriving soon. Don’t go back to sleep.”

An order, one far easier to comprehend than the kiss or whatever stories he meant for it to reference. It also raised a question.

“Where?” you asked, the word marred by your obvious difficulty in getting your thoughts together. Fortunately, he’d given you enough of a shock that you could acknowledge the fact that you hadn’t at all considered where the car might be taking you, nor the horrors that might lay beyond.

Illumi blinked at you, his eyes shining in the darkness with the unnerving glossiness of an oil-slick.

“Home,” he responded, speaking the word in such a matter-of-fact way you might have been able to forget what he did to your own.


	95. Yandere Kurapika + Kurta Clan Survivor

The night sky was quite fittingly dark through the window - A window which had become your sole connection to the outside world (unless, of course, you were to count  _him_ ). The reason for the dark was one of nature, not as a supernatural response to your own mood. A new Moon. Representative of change.

Very fitting, then, because things had been building to this crescendo for awhile. Building and building and building. From the smooth beginnings of a wish fulfilled to the monkey’s paw curse of this tense passion heat of a relationship being strained and pulled taunt. Pushed to breaking. And now, shattering.

You turned your back, your body curled inwards as you looked out the window, unable to face him as the argument found a lull. The air in the dark room, your prison, was heavy and uncomfortable with tension. An expectation of something happening was apparent, even if you had no way to define the feeling, but it came in a way you least expected.

Kurapika’s steps were barely audible as he approached you, but you could feel the storm cloud of pressure as he drew near. You didn’t look, but that didn’t matter. His hand was firm when he grasped your arm to pull you to face him, not that you would have been able to dodge his touch even if you had been warned of it. Despite the lack of violence in the motion, your heartbeat spiked in fear. That doubled when you realized how close he was.

You had nowhere to go, the cold glass of the floor-length window already at your back. Nowhere to go, and nothing to say, for words had abandoned you when confronted with his expression. The moment of change crackled like electricity in the frantic span of heartbeats before he moved. And then, he kissed you.

Kurapika’s affection, or whatever you’d call the emotion you’d briefly seen before he pressed his lips to yours, wasn’t the sweetly chaste variety you had idly envisioned as your first with him. On his lips, you could practically taste the desperation, the vulnerability. The way he clung to you, pressed so close it was nearly suffocating, was the expression of a part of himself that had been stripped of his grand verbosity and goal oriented passion. Kurapika was a man laid bare by weakness and pain.

To be kissed by him here, now,  _tonight_  was surprising. Shocking even. You had thought of kissing him so often in weeks before, when you had first met the only other remaining survivor of the Kurta Clan, and, in a way, reclaimed a piece of your family and identity. When you had idolized Kurapika for possessing the strength that you lacked in seeking revenge, when you had worried he’d never see you as anything more than a ward to be protected.

Before you had realized the extent of his mania.

A part of yourself, one that still recognized the danger of Kurapika’s unhealthy rationalization of doing frightening things in the name of keeping you safe, wanted to deny him. To show him that you didn’t approve of what he was doing in a way your words hadn’t seemed to convey. If you were still the capable person you had believed yourself to be for so long (and weren’t you? Even if you hadn’t found a quest in vengeance, you had survived on your own before meeting him), perhaps you could have manipulated this show of weakness.

But, another part of yourself was  _happy_. Kurapika hadn’t touched you often in your time together, aside from the awkward comforting gestures he’d offered in the beginning. Those had been platonic. Innocent, even.  

There wasn’t anything platonic, and certainly nothing innocent, about this kiss.

It  _excited_  you.

It  _terrified_  you.

The sensation of Kurapika’s body against yours, his tongue tracing the seam of your lips and hands firmly holding you near, made you realize how starved for touch, for affection you were. In the emotions you could sense more clearly than ever, you realized that Kurapika was the same. The connection muddied the waters. It made it difficult to figure out where your own feelings stopped and his began.

And it begged a question: Who would it hurt more if you were to push him away, Kurapika or yourself?

If you pulled away from Kurapika now, he’d avert those awful haunted eyes from yours and retreat to whatever misery you knew never sank far beneath the surface. And, with only the memory of this embrace, you would be left cold and alone. Just as empty as he was, as you had been before.

After all, who else did you have?  _What_  else did you have? For so long, your assumption had been that you were the only one left. A relic of a people destroyed. For so long, you had been alone. Fear of returning to that state was why you had stayed, why you had allowed him to weave a suffocatingly protective shroud to keep you trapped beneath.

That was wrong.  _This_  was wrong.

Maybe, if he had done this before. Before, when you had hoped that the two of you could find a way back to reclaim something of the family you lost. Before, when you had fantasized about this moment because Kurapika was the only one who could understand your pain. Before, when you were sure you could fix each other. Before you realized that you were just another facet to Kurapika’s torment and before you had become little more than a prisoner and before everything had fallen apart and-

His thumb ran across your jaw, a gentle motion. It made you  _melt_ , objections running like heated wax to the depths of your thoughts, everything fading away as your world narrowed the man holding you in an embrace that was firm with what felt like fear that you’d slip away from him.

Without thinking, you tilted your head for a better angle, your hands rising up with the desire to feel Kurapika’s silky hair between your fingers. You returned the kiss because you wanted to, because, no matter how he treated you or what he did, he was all you had left.

Some part of yourself screamed in protest, in fear.

Another rejoiced.

Two wrongs didn’t make a right, but that had never stopped Kurapika before, and it certainly wasn’t going to stop you.

He reacted to your acceptance oddly, a sound that almost sounded pained working its way from his throat while his hands only pulled you tighter. The kiss became almost sloppy as he used it to express emotions his endless supply of words couldn’t, as you returned in kind.

The unseen new moon above watched you, an isolated and broken pair clinging to one another with unsteady arms. The cosmos was as uncaring as ever, an unknowable entity that would allow your Clan to be massacred just as dispassionately as it allowed any other atrocity, that would view the both of you desperately seeking connection through this reckless assault of need from its impartial throne from up on high.

To feel desire for Kurapika under these circumstances, and to be desired by him, was wrong, disastrously so, but what wasn’t wrong in your world? What right could you possibly expect to emerge from the ashes of your life?

You tasted salt. Tears. They were your own, you realized, falling from your closed eyes and sliding down your cheeks, invading the place where your mouth met Kurapika’s with the personified flavor of pain. Since that awful first year, you’d grown callouses to crying, but he had so easily worn them away. Grief and pain ached in your chest, aided by the lack of breath. Crying for yourself, for him. For what was happening, what he had done and what you were enabling.

This new moon marked the point of no return. You knew that absolutely when Kurapika pulled away; the moment ending and changing as walls went back up and his fragility abated back behind those passion tinged eyes.

Heavy breaths mingled in the space between you, the tense charge in the air having gained a different meaning in the moments (hours, it could have been hours since you first confronted him with angry words about his irrational rules of safety) that you had been kissing. The room was otherwise silent, almost unnervingly so.

“Why didn’t you stop me?” Kurapika finally asked, before you had any chance in organizing your wild thoughts.

He sounded almost accusatory, despite his breathless voice, and although Kurapika was no longer as weak as he had been, the pain was obvious in the words. As if he thought, on some level, that you deserved, or at least should have wanted, something better than this. The part of yourself that was angry with Kurapika agreed. Another part doubted the validity of that idea. If not him, then what? Then who?

“I… I don’t know,” you said after a beat too long of silence, the only words you could scrape together in the mess of raw emotion whirling through your brain. The truth was met with hesitance, a sickness in your stomach that when you spoke your feelings aloud you’d never be able to take them away.

Illuminated dimly by the scant light filtering through the window from the street below, Kurapika’s eyes burned into your face. Waiting, not moving away to allow you any space. Giving you a chance to amend your answer. You averted your eyes, as you didn’t trust the dark would hide whatever emotions swam behind the tears that still blurred your vision.

“Why did you kiss me?” you challenged, speaking quietly. Not that it mattered; you could have whispered and it would have felt like a shout. His uneven breath hitched at the reversal.  

“You should have stopped me,” Kurapika insisted rather than answer. Your question had somehow  _solidified_  his weakness. Your cracked words crystallized his messy gush of emotion and passion into something hard and icy hot. When Kurapika spoke, it was a voice leveled by cold fire. His ever-nebulous control.

Your eyes shot up at the uneasily stoic tone, meeting red ringed eyes with the boldness of surprise. His gaze was, despite all your best efforts, more haunted than you’d ever seen. The sight of the Kurta eyes was said to be one of the most splendidly beautiful things imaginable, but all you saw was storm clouds ringed by hellfire. The circle of flame where Kurapika’s endless torment raged, not too dissimilar to your own.

A mirror, of a sort.

An innate sense of self-preservation longed to push him away from you, uncomfortable with that look.

But you didn’t, feeling an awful sense of heartbreak in tandem with the discomfort. No matter what else he was, no matter how frightening he could be, you could never forget who Kurapika had been to you. Who he still was, sometimes. Someone beautiful, someone broken. Someone strong, someone fragile. The only one in the world who could understand you. But now you were met with the reminder that whatever intentions of family and hope you’d had when you met him, it was futile. You were useless to him. No, worse! Finding you had added just another hardship to his self destructive sense of obligation.

You hated him for it, or at least you had told yourself you did. His pain was selfish, taken on without any consideration for you. Kurapika was a fool, a horrible fool. More tears formed as you got caught in the twisty space between the anger you should have felt and some strikingly painful variety of what you could only think to call love.

“Kurapika…” you began, reaching for him, wanting to touch him, to comfort him. You should have been running after seeing this shift in emotion, after being kissed without warning, but you lacked the drive.

Even now, after all he’d done, there was that aching impulse to help him. Maybe it was the same thing he felt when he forced you into confined isolation for what he called safety, a foolish emotion that was more selfish than not.

Maybe it was love.

Whatever you called it, the feeling was unwanted. Kurapika was nothing if not dangerously mercurial when impassioned (and you knew that, would have remembered if not distracted by the hundreds of emotions that filled you) but your mind was clouded by the taste of his kiss, by his need for you, unhealthy and dangerous as it had become. Too distracted to notice that this man, hardened and cold, did not want your compassion.

He stepped away from you. The cold at your back, the chill of the dark night, happily took his place.

“That was a mistake,” Kurapika said dispassionately, turning away. His body was tense, movements overly careful as he sought to regain control.

The words hit you hard, confusion and cold making you shiver, feeling of your arms wrapping around your middle doing nothing to lessen the chill. Another tear, the only warm thing you had left, slid down your cheek.

“Why?” you asked, pleading. It was pathetic, and you weren’t even sure why you asked. Of course it was a mistake, there was nothing about this situation that was right or even sane.

It was impossible to forget, however, that in the moment, you had kissed him back.

“I made the decision to keep you here to ensure your safety, but it’s not something I take lightly,” Kurapika began explaining in a mostly stoic voice, running a hand over his face in a way that spoke of agitation to contradict his calm act, “I was aware that by imprisoning you I forfeited any chance at the two of us having a relationship outside of jailer and prisoner. As it’s human nature to detest those that take away our freedom, anger was a reaction I anticipated. I resigned myself to your hatred as the cost of your safety.” He sighed, shaking his head, still turned away. “In any case, anything more would make this more difficult.”

Your stomach turned at the way he spoke of his logic, of you. It was as if he truly didn’t care about anything beyond the absolute of your survival.

But that wasn’t quite true, you had felt so much more than this detached version of himself before. “Then why did you kiss me?” you asked again, speaking with more strength. He couldn’t just do this and  _leave_.

He couldn’t leave you, couldn’t walk through that door and set the locks, abandoning you to face the dark night by yourself, facing the stretch of endless hours without even the moon for company.

Kurapika said nothing, but you’d managed to make him tense up all over again. It was a dangerous game you were playing, you realized. That didn’t make you stop.

“You can’t just pretend that didn’t happen.  _I_  can’t,” you said, taking a step forward. Kurapika finally looked back at you, his expression locked into a carefully composed mask. It would have been perfect, were his eyes not infected by scarlet. For a moment, you thought he might say more.

“You should,” he finally said curtly, turning away. Towards the door. Leaving you.

The idea of being trapped alone made your blood run cold. If he left you alone with these thoughts and feelings in the dark tonight, you were  _certain_  you’d go mad. That’s what isolation did to people, wasn’t it? You could practically  _feel_  it lurking, brought forth now he’d opened the floodgates for these awful extremes.

Breathing heavy, desperate fear outweighing any intelligent rationale, you rushed at him. It was, without a doubt, one of the stupidest things you’d ever done. Startling a trained fighter? Idiotic. Kurapika’s reflexes were too fast for you to keep up with when he caught your ‘attack’, easily twisting you so your momentum carried you down. You hit the floor with a pained  _umph_ , weakly and breathlessly struggling his hold out of thoughtless surprise. The move placed Kurapika directly on top of you, pinning you down.

It offered vague consolation that he looked at least as surprised as you felt, hovering above you.

“What were you trying to do?” Kurapika asked, his voice strained with annoyance, as well as something you couldn’t exactly recognize.

You stared up at his unreadable expression, heart pounding. This position was intimate, far more than he’d ever dared to touch you. Kurapika’s body was warm, solid. Considering his slim figure, it was easy to forget his strength, but now it was nearly all you could focus on. That, and his smell. Familiar, soft, warm. The implied meaning of these things brought a feeling that tingled low in your gut in a way you couldn’t decidedly call good or bad. It made your hands shake, your breath catching as you stared up at him.

“I don’t… want you to go,” you said awkwardly, nervously. Shyly, almost. There was something terribly, horrifically wrong with that, considering the circumstances.

Something in you screamed at you to fight him off, disgusted and horrified by this turn of events and your body’s reaction to it. Another part of you was still spinning.

“You know you can’t lie to me,” Kurapika said, obviously unimpressed with your answer.

“I know,” you agreed, confused by the statement and more than a little preoccupied by the disorienting sensations. He seemed focused - unaware of what this position felt like?

“Feigning feelings to sway me into risking your safety won’t work,” he said, “It’s unnecessary. No matter what, I won’t release you until I’m satisfied that the danger is gone.”

You blinked, finally able to spot it. The hope. His reason for his anger, because he didn’t dare believe you were being honest in what you felt. He was afraid, too. So much fear and guilt and self loathing. Stupid selfishness, all of it.

You should have hated him for it, considering that was why you were in this awful situation at all, but you weren’t surprised to find that you didn’t. You were stupidly selfish, too.

“I wasn’t pretending,” you told him softly, unsure of what else to say or do. 

This made Kurapika’s eyes widen, then narrow again, his hands tightened in holding yours in a way you weren’t even sure he was aware of, grinding the bones together and making you wince in pain. At your quiet whimper, he released them.

Saying nothing, Kurapika shook his head as if to expel your words from his mind, the shaggy ends of his hair tickling your face as he bowed his head, making you shiver. His eyes were closed, but you didn’t need to see them to know that he was fighting with himself. Fighting, and losing.

“You should hate me,” Kurapika told you, opening his eyes, which were filled with a renewed look of frenzy, of plaintive need. Shifting, constantly shifting. He didn’t mean those words, but you knew they weren’t a lie, either.

“I should,” you agreed again. The words were hollow. You didn’t hate Kurapika, you couldn’t. Not only because he was the last remaining member of a people you had betrayed in your own way (and, really, what superiority could you claim when you’d done nothing to seek him out? Nothing to reclaim the eyes or to get revenge?), but because it was who you were. Who he was.

Weak, broken, stupid, misguided-

“Tell me to stop,” Kurapika said, “Tell me to leave, or else I’ll..”

“Kurapika…” you said, the word ‘stop’ forming and disappearing on your lips several times. You didn’t want to ask, to accept this (this, whatever it was), but you couldn’t find it within yourself to deny him, either. To do one or the other would be to choose, and you weren’t nearly strong enough to bring yourself to do that. “Don’t leave,” you finally whispered, the words getting caught in your swollen throat.

His eyes met yours. Lost. Wild. Broken, beautiful boy. His throat worked as he swallowed hard. What did he see in yours? You could only guess that it was similar. Mirrored images of red. The need Kurapika was burning with wasn’t lust, at least not completely, but you could feel yourself resonating with it. Even if it wasn’t your emotion, it could be.

“If you don’t tell me to stop, I don’t think I’ll be able to,” he told you, regret in his voice. Admitting weakness. 

You could have exploited his weakness.

That idea was repugnant.

You should have stopped him.

Did you want him to stop? The word pushed its way into your mouth, sitting on the tip of your tongue, but it went no further. 

Instead, you whispered. “Kiss me.”

And with that, Kurapika’s crimson will crumbled into ruby dust, and his lips (slightly chapped, although you’d take them over those of any well-manicured mouth any day) found yours. This time, you felt no hesitation in winding the soft strands of his hair around your fingers, pulling slightly to make him groan. Kurapika’s own hands pushed at your shirt, validating what you had half-anticipated half-feared of a position like this. You didn’t stop him.

The sense of wrongness was overwhelming, dark and heavy in your stomach as his warm hands explored each stretch of revealed skin with a sort of reverence. Horror was deep-set in the very core of your being at the way this twisted wish had been met.

You pointedly ignored it.


	96. Pariston Hill + Portrait of a Female

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically a songfic of Portrait of a Female by Cruel Youth

There was nothing, absolutely nothing you could do to avoid this, was there? Coming back here, staring at your elaborately made-up face in the elevator mirror on the way up, stumbling slightly as you walked down the narrow foyer, raising your hand to knock on his door - it was all a foregone conclusion, no matter how much you pushed fate to prove otherwise.

Right after knocking came a slash of regret, but he opened the door before you could convince yourself that it was too late and he was asleep, before you could tell yourself you absolutely shouldn’t have been doing this, before you could do the intelligent thing and turn around. Pariston opened the door with a smile, a smile that had expected this, that told you he’d been waiting for you to come crawling back after your attempted break-up.  

Because of course you would.

So, no, Pariston wasn’t the least bit surprised to see you (why would he be?) but The Prince of Pretend mimicked the emotion regardless. 

“My, my, what’s this?”

You’d been asking yourself the same thing.

Cocoa cruel eyes left yours to drag up and down your figure, a lazy appraisal in the yellow-tinged hall light. Pariston’s expression gave nothing away, just a slight quirk of his lips that could mean anything. It wasn’t until you were denied it that you realized how badly you’d wanted a reaction from him seeing you like this, whatever it might have been.

Glamorous, maybe a bit slutty. A look he wouldn’t have approved of when you were together, not with the cheap heels, slinky minidress, makeup and hair styled in a messy sexy way for the club where you had spent most of the night drinking and dancing, trying to distract yourself. (That was what girls did post break-up, right? Throw back shot after shot, party with a hoard of glitzy strangers, make bad choices in the glow of neon lights.) Pariston didn’t even blink, seemingly uncaring of your appearance, of your actions.

And, somehow, that  _hurt_.

Was that why you’d come? To prove something to him, to get a reaction? All you’d done was prove Pariston’s point. In this little attempt at independence, you’d played into the elaborate game of make believe that was your relationship. Even now; showing up uninvited in the middle of the night on a whim of true, desperation emotion; you were fulfilling nothing more than a tired cliche.

Considering how much you knew Pariston loved denying you what you wanted, it was almost like you’d been seeking out this pain (and maybe you did, because at least it was  _something_ ). 

Of course he’d deny you this, refuse to give you the response you’d subconsciously sought out by breaking up with him, by showing up on his doorstep reeking of other men and liquor. You thought that by doing this, you’d get some sort of upper hand, but all it did was prove how powerless you were.

Absolutely and always, you were powerless when it came to him.

“I was in the neighborhood,” you finally responded. Empty words without any real meaning - Pariston’s favorite type. That was the line people used in these situations. They uttered that cliche phrase to free themselves from the guilt of showing up at their ex’s place after breaking up with them via note, pathetic, tispy, and their skin crawling with the ghostly impressions of other men’s hands they’d used in an attempt to forget. You said it to pretend like you hadn’t spent the whole night suffering in the so-called freedom of liberation, fighting the inevitable.

A poor fight, honestly. 

“It’s very late, you know,” Pariston pointed out, perhaps to draw a point to the fact that it was rude of you to come calling when he might have been asleep. He hadn’t been, though. Pariston hadn’t even changed from the day’s outfit. He’d merely ditched the jacket and vest and untucked his shirt, unbuttoning the top few buttons. Attractive. Distracting. Even if he wasn’t fazed by the physical, you certainly were. “Perhaps you’re hoping I’ll invite you in? Although, after your note, I find that hard to believe…”  

Pariston’s smile said otherwise, sharp to match with the dark gleam of his eyes. They, as always, managed to shed you of the disguise you clung to, the mask that allowed you to live in the dissonant glow of misery that was being in love with a devil like Pariston.

He saw you as you were: a fool. A willingly masochistic participant in his cruel tricks, someone who would choose him even knowing the darkness inside those dark eyes. Someone who would, despite all your state intentions, choose him now. Again. Always. And why wouldn’t you? It was the only thing that felt right anymore.

And, really, what was so wrong with that? 

A rhetorical question. 

Your heels clicked on the polished floor, your choice to respond with action rather than words pushing you forward. Without hesitation, you stepped past the threshold of the door, wrapping your arms around Pariston’s neck and seeking his lips with the desperate fervor of a junkie looking for her fix. It naturally followed that you press your body against his, kiss him in an attempt to stop the ceaseless thoughts pounding in your head and the bitter aching of your heart, to set the world to rights with all of the wrongs you were committing.

Amusement played in Pariston’s expression in the split second before your mouths connected (the amusement of an adult watching a child’s antics, but you were well aware of the way he viewed you), but so did the darkened edges of excitement, because  _of course_  it did. That was all this was, all you could ever be with each other when you were fairly certain you loved him but  _fuck_  if that didn’t feel an awful lot like hate, and damn you for a fool if you thought he’d ever return the sentiment.

The only love Pariston offered was in the gleeful pleasure he took when causing you pain, in the sharp bite when he sunk his teeth into your bottom lip and the bruising grip he had on your hip. And that was, really, the only love you knew how to accept anymore.

You felt sick. Tipsy still, but not enough that you weren’t culpable for your actions. Disgust was a thrill rushing through your veins, a drug like trance. This was familiar, awful in the best of ways. Arousal clouded everything, excused your actions and your disturbing thoughts.

Pariston’s arms were dangerous, his affection a promise of pain. The two sides of this high would always be the result your consent (or lack of it, sometimes, but tonight your eagerness proved the affirmative).

While you were the one who’d initiated this kiss, Pariston didn’t allow you control, pushing his tongue into your mouth and maneuvering your body to suit him. In response, you pulled  _hard_ on the soft strands of his hair, still searching for the reaction you’d come for (or maybe  _this_ was all you’d come for). This time, Pariston delivered, giving you a low sound of surprise before sinking his teeth into your lower lip. It wasn’t a playful nibble, more of a bite hard enough to leave your lip swollen and bloody, but all you could do was moan, luxuriating in the feeling.

Pariston broke the kiss, leaving you gasping and reeling. “I thought you wanted to break up,” he said playfully, only somewhat affected by the breathlessness that had your chest heaving in an uneven rhythm. “Aren’t you afraid of me?” He asked that lowly, referring to a passage in the note you’d left. 

His eyes seemed excited by the idea, delighting in the array of emotions you were unable to hide from him. The weight of Pariston’s gaze had always been intense, breaking through the mask you wore in a way nobody else had. It made you frightened, it made you angry, it made you feel nervous. 

It made you  _feel_.

And now, despite the fact that you probably were afraid of him, you felt  _desire_.

“Or…” Pariston continued, smiling, his fingers casually tracing you racing pulse, “Is this your way of making me jealous? I imagine that going out looking like that got you a lot of attention…” he paused, then continued in a darker tone, with a sharper smile, “Did it make you feel powerful to have them looking at you, touching you? Were you  _happy_?”

Cruel. Pariston’s pointed words cut deep, but his tone made you  _hot_. Your whining groan of dissent and fruitless attempt to pull away only made him laugh, as if it were a joke.

“Don’t be upset, I’m not angry. After all, it’s not like we’re dating anymore.” 

Hearing that hurt. 

“I didn’t… Do anything with anyone,” you told him, pleading with eyes that only found pleasure in the hurt he caused. Words bubbled up. A gamble, revealing weaknesses to Pariston was generally a bad idea. A very bad idea. “All I could think about was how much I wanted you… Pariston, please, I-”  

Soft fingertips trailed up your neck, pulling your chin even higher as he measured your expression. “What is it that you want, exactly?” he asked.

“Fuck me,” you breathed out. A cliche line of a different type. He hummed, his hand dropping down to slide up your thigh, beneath your skirt. The heels made the reach more manageable, as well as allowed him to pull you even closer. For a second you considered protesting about doing this here, standing in the open doorway with the elevator (private or not) behind you.

Instead, a whimpering moan left your mouth when Pariston’s fingers reached the triangle of satin covering your heated core. An entire body shiver ran through you, making you grateful that he was holding you up, otherwise you’d certainly have fallen to your knees at the feeling.

“And here I thought you hated me,” Pariston cooed, pushing against the fabric to test exactly how wet you were. The answer was embarrassingly.

“I do,” you responded breathily, eyes falling closed with a gasp when his fingers found your clit through the thin fabric, rubbing circles against the sensitive bud. The time for lies was past, now. Or perhaps this was just another type of lie. It was all blurry, now, hazy with desire. You were too focused on his clever fingers. On the sensation. On the way he smelled, the warmth of his body, the fact that you absolutely hated this even as you luxuriated in it.

Pariston’s joy was palpable.

“Then why did you come back?” he asked, moving past the barrier of the thong to test your entrance, sliding through the evidence of your pleasure with a sound that might have embarrassed you if not for the cloud of arousal.

“I need you,” you whispered, the words colored by lust, hiding the sickening truth of them somewhat, “I wish I didn’t, but I-”  

Pariston stopped.

Your hips bucked, needing  _more_ , but he merely pulled away, letting the fabric move back into place. When your eyes opened, it was to see his.

Empty and dark. Depthless.

“You broke my heart, you know. At the very least you could have told me how you felt in person,” Pariston said silkily, displeasure layered thickly (falsely) into his low tone, “Perhaps we could have resolved things without all of this pain and trouble.”

“I’m sorry,” you said, speaking more in the hopes he’d reward you than as a real apology. It’s not like it mattered, the idea that you could hurt Pariston was laughable. He wanted pretend, lipservice. You  _needed_  him.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that before I can find it within myself to forgive you,” Pariston said, drawing his hand from beneath your skirt. Staring up at him, your faces so close, you could see with perfect clarity the pleasure he took in your betrayed expression.

“Pariston-” you began, but he stopped your words by pushing his fingers past your bloodied lip and into your mouth. The taste was familiar, the flavor of your arousal.

“How nice,” he said sweetly, praising the automatic way you accepted his fingers, sucking them clean. You hated the way it affected you, warm and molten in your core. “Maybe I will forgive you after all…”  

Those words gave you hope, vile as it was. Confusion, then, when Pariston pulled his fingers from your mouth and turned away from you, going back into the apartment. His absence left you cold, swaying unsteadily without him to hold you upright.

“Wa-wait,” you said, reaching at his back desperately, “You said…”

“I’ll have to think about it,” he said, pausing to speak over his shoulder. Light glinted off of his smile. “Good night.”

All you got was a final glance at Pariston’s unreadable eyes, partially turned away, before the door slammed in your face, leaving you alone and confused in the hall. 

At first you didn’t know what to do, half hoping he would come back if you waited, but of course he didn’t. He had you, if he so chose, but for now it was more entertaining to hurt you.

That was how this worked, the miserable truth of the love you shared.

Wrung out and stifling tears in case he was watching through the cameras (and crying anyway, because that was all you could ever seem to do in regards to Pariston), you finally turned to leave. Pushing the issue would just embarrass you more. 

Shame, pain, anger, and misery replaced the rush that had previously been arousal and need, the sharp flip side you had expected to lust, although not in this way.

The disgustingly cheerful  _ding_  of the elevator fell on deaf ears, dwarfed by the echoed sound of Pariston’s laughter and his voice, the crash of the slamming door. When you closed your eyes, unable to look at yourself in the elevator’s mirror on the way down, it was all him. His words, his smell, his fingers, his eyes - Pariston was ingrained into your very soul and you hated him (God, you really, truly did) but the second he called, you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you would race to his side.

It was too late to pretend anything else. You were his, faithfully, unconditionally. 


	97. Pakunoda + Informant

You weren’t lonely.

Being an informer was to live without friends or any true allies, that was the very nature of the trade. Your profession was slipping through the shadows as a ghost and collecting secrets with the arguably distasteful goal of selling them back to the highest bidder, not something that made you very popular. It couldn’t be helped, and you saw no point in pretending or lying for the sake of something as inconsequential as a personal relationship.

All that mattered to you was business. Relationships that couldn’t be ruined by feelings. Ones that were only as strong as your spying skills and the numbers in their bank account. Early on, you had learned that someone could invite you to sit at their table, they could laugh and be friendly with you, even claim to like you and value you, but that didn’t make them not hate you. The danger you posed to them outweighed anything else, and most would happily shove a blade between your ribs given the chance.

That was fine. Expected.

They only saw one side of the coin, blinded by their fear and disgust to care to see that there was so much more to espionage. Having spent most of your life learning and perfecting the skill, you were more than well aware that there was grace and art to it. That push for perfection was the reason you had thrived while so many others failed. It was the reason you sacrificed all else in your life.

Those with money and power couldn’t - or wouldn’t - recognize your skill, but your efficiency was notorious. To them, the men and women who dabbled in the underworld for their own greedy gain, you were a necessity.

That got under people’s skin more than any distaste.

They hated you, but you weren’t lonely. You didn’t blame them, that was simply how people were.

Except for her. She was different.

Or maybe you were just weak.

The day you met was an off one, your bank account stuffed generously from a recent job and a pumpkin flavored-aesthetically pleasing coffee drink in your hand. It almost made you feel like a real person, the sweet taste a nice counterpart to the gentle weather of a budding autumn. 

Around where you at on a solitary bench, the park was full of families and kids. People.  

Some of your kind, the bottom-feeders of the underworld, didn’t like the sunshine or wide, open spaces with crowds, but you weren’t afraid. There was no reason for you to live like a cornered rat, that was hardly any life at all.

Not that it mattered one way or another. To everyone around you, you had become a set piece in the background of their day out.

An important lesson of espionage was learning to exist on the very edges of the society around you, fated to watch people live their lives from the perspective of a true outsider. A ghost, like the silly name you’d gained somewhere during your career. You stayed in plain sight, yet remained entirely invisible. Their eyes slipped over you without acknowledgement, as if you were something transient and immediately forgotten. The technique was the product of a lifetime of training mixed with equally intensive Nen training, a shroud good enough to fool even some of the most powerful underworld combatants.

It was safety. Power.

You could believe in that more, these days. You hadn’t contemplated your state of existence in months.  

Feeling it fail, then, was like a blast of ice cold water, a gut-wrenching shock with the sudden weight of a pair of eyes landing directly on you. Of course people would occasionally  _look_  at you, but this feeling was intense. Focused. 

The person was approaching from behind, but you couldn’t hear them move. Proof of their strength was the fact that you had to strain to get any sense of them, nothing but a faintly feminine scent in the breeze, obscured by the sweat of running children and the perfume of the mothers watching them, by the musk of fallen leaves and browning grass.

It wasn’t a scent you recognized, although your sense of smell wasn’t as refined as you might have liked. More actively intimidating was the fact that they only seemed minorly concerned with disguising themselves, something only the very strong or the very stupid did.

Chills were the only reaction you allowed physically, they crawled across the little hairs on your neck and arms, but your mind was organized into a whirl of danger assessment and what move to make.

Stay still, you decided. Wait. A chase wouldn’t favor you, especially with how flustered you’d allowed yourself to become. Blame the abruptness, the fact that you hadn’t noticed them until they were close, but it was still a terrible rookie mistake.

Somewhere nearby, a child screamed as his kite got caught in a harsher breeze, the handle wrenched from his chubby fist. Death, the heady scent of rotting nature, was carried to your nose. The air settled quickly, becoming nearly unnaturally still in the wake of those extremes.

“It’s a lovely day,” a feminine voice noted as she came from behind to sit beside you on the bench. Her brown-eyed gaze was pointed and sharp, but no longer jarring enough to bring chills. She sat close. Close enough that you felt the air move around her, the heat of her body.

Adopting a look of moderate surprise, as if only shocked by the appearance of a stranger sitting beside you, you allowed yourself a solid look at the potential threat. Then, your feigned surprise became real.

The job you did was harsh to those who went through life with predetermined expectations, but this woman was… Well, not what you expected.

Long, pale legs disappeared into the skirt of an outfit that might have seemed professional if not for the way the fabric clung to her perfect figure, the neckline unbuttoned enough to display a decent amount of cleavage and hem high enough that it was impossible to ignore her perfect thighs. Short blonde hair framed a perfectly made up face with a distinctly aquiline nose and arched brow line. 

Attractive. Intimidating.

And the way she  _smelled_. Gunpowder contrasted against a light perfume, the sulfur scent of violence contrasted against the delicately feminine.

Her look was a ploy of weaponized femininity, one you were quite familiar with within your particular sub-sect of criminality, but she wore it with a confidence you had never seen, sitting with such ease that you got the distinct impression for a moment that this was just  _how she was_.

But that was a lie, certainly. Nobody would front with their true identity.

Even telling yourself that, the fact that it almost had you convinced as the truth only reinforced a very powerful understanding. This woman was dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. Hers was not the confidence of the stupid, but that of someone who was absolutely assured in their superiority.

You told yourself that it was merely the surprise of being confronted with someone like this that caused your stomach to twist oddly, and that the hated heat on your face was brought up by irritation.

Nothing else.

Pointedly forcing your eyes away from her, you took a casual sip of your drink through the straw. It was important to stay casual. After so many dealings with important people, you knew that to be an absolute truth.

Besides, you had an abundance of enemies, sure, but it was doubtful they’d try anything in a public setting like this. She didn’t seem hostile at the moment, either, looking at you with a small, secretive smile. An expression that made clear what her introductory remark had not, a sly humor of understanding between the two of you.

Friendly, almost.

A lie of a different kind, but definitely a lie.

“I suppose,” you said nonchalantly, ignoring the odd feeling her expression gave you.

“You’re not what I expected,” she said, trace amusement in her tone at the acknowledgement. 

 _Right back at you_ , you thought in return.

“Ghost, an informant with the uncanny ability to learn information others cannot. I didn’t think you’d be such a cute girl.”

People had said similar things to you before, especially when trying to demean or devalue you. Why, then, did this woman nearly make you sputter? 

To avoid making a fool of yourself by breaking the casual facade, your shoulders went tense, your lips finding the straw to take another drink. It was empty. The cup gurgled as you tried to get the last drops of coffee. Awkward.

“I don’t use that name,” you said after a second. Overly defensive. 

It was true, at least. In practice you preferred using real names rather than comical titles. To you, they didn’t seem all that intimidating. Cheesy, mostly. Any name would be equally false, but it was easier to create a fake persona around a real name rather than something silly like Ghost. That wasn’t exactly why you snapped, though.

She knew it, too.

“Oh? What should I call you, then?” the woman asked, obviously pleased with what she’d done.

“Depends on who’s asking,” you said, forcing yourself into civility. You couldn’t exactly go around pissing off importantly people, but you had a bad feeling about prolonging this interaction too much.

“I am,” she responded. So self assured. You looked away from her again, hiding your insecurity by focusing on the child from before. He had seemingly forgotten about his kite as he played with his fair-haired friend.

“Today’s my day off,” you said, projecting an air of confident dismissal, “Any professional inquiries can wait ‘till tomorrow.” Making people wait was a common tactic. Meant to establish control.

In your periphery, the woman smiled, spreading her arms across the back of the bench more comfortably. Dominantly. “That’s fine,” she said, truly unruffled by your attempt to assert control. “I suppose I can wait a day. Until then… Perhaps you and I could become friends. I’m Pakunoda.”

There was no disgust or hate in her pretty brown eyes when you met them. They were sparked with interest, curiosity. Understanding.

 _Fuck_.

You couldn’t let yourself act like some newbie fool who would fall for the first attractive woman to make your heart race in a long time. And yet, the corner of your lips tugged up, begging to return her smile.

“Perhaps we could,” you said after a moment, telling yourself you were only agreeing to get information. That you didn’t feel genuinely curious, a curiosity for your own sake, about her and all her mystery. And her long, dusting eyelashes and painted lips, or her slender, milky pale legs and almost excessive amount of cleavage, the cut of her jacket didn’t leave anything to your imagination, which you didn’t exactly mind considering her height really, and-

You were staring, you realized. And she was watching you stare.

_Fuck._

“I’m y/n,” you said in a way to cover your embarrassment as you forced your eyes up to hers. Giving her your name. Your real name. Why did you give her your real name? Pakunoda smiled knowingly, seeming more smug about your behavior than upset about it.

You didn’t know if that was good or bad. Probably bad.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, y/n.”


	98. Chrollo Lucilfer + Yan! Kurapika's S/O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sequel to the most recent yandere Kurapika chapter
> 
> But now
> 
> It's Chrollo

Kurapika was the only person you had known to visit this place since the day you had found yourself prisoner. The sound of his approach was always the same. Locks shifting, doors opening. Softly, softly, building your anticipation.

Not today.

Today, something very bad was happening.

You realized that (too late, far too late) because of the sounds. Violent sounds, not incredibly dissimilar to the rolling thunder you had heard earlier in the day. Working up the inside of your Rapunzel’s tower was the sound of people forcing their way into places they shouldn’t have been.

Safety had weaned you off of the constant awareness you used to have, a different set of concerns and problems replacing all of the hard lessons you had learned when you were alone after the attack. By the time you scrambled from your chair, dropping your book carelessly to the floor, you had no time to do anything other than hide.

You were good at hiding, always had been. It was how you had survived for so long, using your skill in remaining undetected to keep yourself safe from danger. The skill came naturally, much more-so than running, and much,  _much_  more than the laughable idea of you fighting.

So you hid.

The last lock guarding your room was broken as you quietly shut the closet door behind you, and then the front door opened. For a second, a wild second of desperation, you hoped you would hear Kurapika calling for you.

His voice was not the first one you heard, however.

“Do you think this is where the chain user lives?” a feminine voice asked, muffled with the door between your improvised hiding spot and the open room.

“No,” a man with a soft and accented voice answered. “This is a prison.”

The intruder spoke so casually of such a horrible thing, although his use of the word prison was, for once, the very last concern on your mind. More pressing was the worry that they’d somehow hear the blaring sound of your heart beating a frenzied pace, or feel the terror you were certain had thickened the air around you.

Worse yet was the knowledge that they were already moving about the small space, and there wasn’t enough furniture to give you hope they wouldn’t search the closet you were in. If you had just been aware enough to hear the warnings and give yourself a little more time to prepare, you were sure you could have done better, or at least found a way to contact Kurapika.

Sweat beaded up on the back of your neck, sticky and uncomfortable.

“Oh? Awfully nice to be a prison,” the woman responded, unfazed by the man’s cold assessment.

Their footsteps were soundless, even with your hands covering your nose and mouth so your hearing wasn’t disrupted by your breathing. Like Kurapika, these people simply moved silently. Because they were dangerous.  

“It’s a cage,” a new woman chimed in, morbidly confident in the assessment.

“A cage? How does that relate to the chain user?” the first girl asked. Blunt.

“I… I don’t know,” the other girl admitted, as if awkward in admitting the fact, “Danchou, what do you think?”

Danchou? That was a title, wasn’t it? Nobody answered at first, leaving you a score of agonizing silence. Was ‘Danchou’ someone new, or one of the people you had already heard? Three intruders, or four? You focused in again on listening to their movements, but it was difficult from your position, nearly impossible between the muffle of the door and the softness of their movements.

You weren’t very good at it, but your best bet was to make a run for it, wasn’t it? If you surprised them, maybe they wouldn’t catch you and you could escape and-

And-

What would you do then?

“I agree with Machi,” a new voice said, interrupting your increasingly panicked thoughts with an unmistakable authority, “This place was originally a safehouse, but has been augmented to keep someone inside as well as keeping others out. Someone leased it privately under the Nostrade family’s name, yet the family and guards have remained in the city proper. I trust Machi’s intuition, there is something important to the chain user here, at least as important as his two other goals. I’m not sure what, but there is definitely a key to defeating him here. We should- Oh?”

The air stilled. You could picture, despite being surrounded only by darkness, every set of eyes falling on the door of the closet, following the noise you had accidentally caused in shuffling to the side, pushing clothes aside with the scrape of hangers on the bar. You could feel their gazes through the wood.

“Someone’s in there,” the woman with the bluntly airy way of speaking stated, entirely unnecessarily.

“Come out,” the other girl (Machi?) called in a cold voice.

Did you dare run? Or did you stall by waiting for them to pull you out? Which was better? What were you meant to do?

What would Kurapika tell you to do?

You tried to think, tried to imagine his voice, but you couldn’t think past the horrible fear. Besides, Kurapika was stronger than you, smarter than you. From where you were standing, confined in the cramped dark with the sharks circling closer and closer, it seemed like there was nothing you  _could_  do.

It was the best - no, the only - option.

Letting out a deep breath, your palms sweaty and hands shaking, you opened the door. It revealed the image of the living space you’d begun to think of as home, decorated now in the fashion of four strangers with varying degrees of murderous intent leveled your way. At first the gray light from the window blinded you, your eyes so accustomed to the darkness, but as you blinked away the glare you got a better look at the intruders.

Two men, two women. Seeing them, you were forced to confront something you very badly hadn’t wanted to consider, but you couldn’t hide from the truth any more than you could hide from them.

The fact was that there was only one group who would be hunting Kurapika, who would have a reason to find this place. These four (only a third of their remaining members, after Kurapika killed one of them) were the terrifying danger that had driven Kurapika to the extreme measures of keeping you locked up.

The Spider.

The Phantom Troupe.

The murderers who had ruined the lives of every person you had ever loved or cared about. They had ruined you, too.

You didn’t need to be told which was the Danchou, their boss. He stood by the window, raven hair slicked back and dressed in a large black coat. Just a glance convinced you of his authority, dwarfing the others in the room. So young, with fair features made strange by the way he’d styled himself. He was the man who had called the order to kill your family, your Clan.

It seemed odd that his hands would be so white, considering how much blood should have been dripping from them. He watched you, expressionless.

“She’s weak,” the other man noted in his unnerving voice with a hint of surprise, his expression mostly unreadable by the fact that his mouth was covered by a skull emblazoned bandana. He stood by the busted up door, blocking your escape. Despite his short stature, your very soul rebelled at the idea of attempting to run past him.

“Who are you?” the woman with pink hair asked in a casually demanding tone, pulling your attention back. Her voice was the one the Danchou had referred to as Machi. She was young, too. “What is your connection to the chain user?”

The chain user, as in Kurapika. If you hadn’t been entirely certain in your assessment before, you were now. They were the enemy, the people you had every reason to hate most in the world.

While you were by no means brave, you set your jaw, raising your chin up at the woman in an attempt at defiance. “You’re them… The Spider,” you said rather than answer her questions, disgust flavoring your tone and disguising some of the fear.

“He told you about us, then. Good, that means you know to be scared,” the shorter man said in his oddly chilling voice, beginning to move towards you.

The words tugged on the red thread of anger in your chest, easing some of the fear, or perhaps the fear was the fuel for the feeling. “Told me?” you questioned with a bitter edge, “Nobody had to  _tell_ me about the people who killed my family and ruined my life, I’m more than well aware of what you are!”

The outburst, somehow, seemed to surprise the group. No, they weren’t surprised by your words. There was something else.

“Scarlet eyes…” the Danchou finally said, cutting the tension. “I was wrong, she’s an extension of his second goal.”

They had all been looking at your eyes. You never wore the colored contacts anymore, there was no purpose to hiding them.

“That could mean…” the Danchou continued under his breath, trailing off before gesturing towards you. “The person who keeps you here, the chain user, do you have a way of contacting them?”

His question surprised you. Wasn’t that the last thing they wanted? “Why?” you asked after a second, defensive, but too surprised to not let the question slip. The Danchou’s expression didn’t change.

“I’d like to speak with him.”

You cast a surreptitious glance at the other three Spiders, but they seemed mildly confused as well, looking towards the Danchou rather than you.

“I don’t,” you lied, meeting the man’s cold, gray eyes directly.

He had given you an excellent idea, though. If you could just get ahold of your phone (Kurapika had never taken it away, it wasn’t as if you had anyone you could call or contact to rescue you regardless), you could get a message to him. Your capacity was limited, but surely there was something he could do with this mess of a situation.

“Don’t get cocky,” the shorter man told you, “I-”

“Feitan,” the Danchou cut him off, stopping Feitan as he approached you. His gray eyes slid back to yours, calculating. “There’s a lot of hatred in your eyes. You care a lot about him, don’t you? I wonderful if he feels the same way, he did lock you up, after all…”

Your jaw and fists clenched.

“To protect me,” you snapped, “From…”

“Us?” the Danchou asked, raising an eyebrow.

Your cheeks flushed, fear and anger battling in your stomach. Kurapika had trapped you in a faulty cage, you couldn’t deny that there was a part of you  _angry_  with him. Terror was, however, much stronger.

“If you help me get in contact with him, that will be it. Truth be told, I’d rather avoid any further confrontation with him if it’s at all possible.”

He had to be lying, that was all that would make sense, all you could expect of a man like this. At the same time, you were again uncertain of how many options you had. The man to your side, Feitan, was tense and coiled, aggression radiating from him in waves. Machi’s cold look wasn’t much better. The only one who seemed unconcerned was the last woman, with dark hair and large glasses. She wasn’t even looking at you.

Kurapika was smart. Maybe he could use the Spider’s contacting him in his favor.

“I can call him,” you finally said, looking back at the Danchou, “Just let me get my phone-”

“Where is it?” he asked before you could so much as move. You grit your teeth, but of course he was being careful.

“Should be under all those books,” you said, gesturing to the table by the couch. It was out of the way from the chair you’d been sitting in earlier. Even the second it would have taken to grab it would have been too much, but now you kicked yourself for not.

“Machi-”

“Got it,” she said, beginning to search for your phone. The Danchou was still studying you. Not watching, anticipating a wrong move like Feitan was, but regarding you with consideration. You avoided the gaze as best you could, hating the way his eyes made your skin crawl.

“Got it,” Machi said, giving him the device.  

“I don’t have his number saved, I’ll have to put it in,” you said. You memorized Kurapika’s numbers because they changed so often, it was just easier that way, but maybe… Maybe this was something you could use?

The Danchou looked at the screen for a moment before concluding you were right.

“I see. Well, come here.”

Your heart pounded.

“If you try anything, I’ll cut off your fingers,” Feitan threatened casually as you stepped away, avoiding the eyes you could feel tracking you. The screen was opened to the dial app. Your mouth was dry. You took your phone and, as quickly as possible, punched in the numbers, setting it on speaker right away. Kurapika, by some stroke of luck, answered almost right away.

“Hel-”

“Kurapika, the Spider found me, don’t-” You hadn’t heard or felt him move, but suddenly Feitan’s hand was on your arm, twisting your your shoulder to get your fingers to release the phone. Chrollo took it, putting it to his ear as Feitan allowed you to collapse to the floor.

It all happened so quickly, leaving you breathless with surprise, catching up a moment too late.

“Am I speaking to the Chain User?” the Danchou asked, going towards the window where the cold gray light filtered in through the clouds. Kurapika said something you couldn’t hear. “Yes, this is Chrollo Lucilfer.” Another pause. “No. We haven’t hurt her. I wanted to have a conversation. Actually, I have a deal I’d like to propose.”

Silence. Even if you strained, it was impossible to make out Kurapika’s words.

“Are you willing to risk that?” Chrollo asked softly.

The silence was longer this time.

“It benefits you, as well. I’ve come to a realization about something.”

A shorter pause.

“It would be best if we could resolve this now, don’t you think?”

Whatever Kurapika said made Chrollo hum, a sound almost akin to passive agreement. “Perhaps. At this rate, there’s a chance you could take out even more of us. Initially that was my fear. Now… Well, it all comes down to your resolve.” He paused, ensuring Kurapika was listening before continuing with a lower voice. “Before you decide, however, you should understand that there’s a member of the Spider that would jump at this opportunity for vengeance. Her death would not be quick or pretty; he and Uvo were very close, you see.”

Coldness overtook your body, flooding your veins with ice.

Chrollo turned away from the window and towards you. Sunlight framed him in stormy, coldly bright light. With it at his back, the sharp lines of his face became more ominous, draped in shadow. Wearing a thoughtful expression, he pulled in a breath through his teeth, discerning gray eyes fixed resolutely down on your fearful look.

“I called because I’d still prefer to put an end to this without any further losses. We’ve achieved what we wanted, the Spider will pull out from the city. As insurance that you won’t follow, I’ll be taking her. Provided you abide by these terms, I’ll allow her to live.” He paused, lips turning up in a little smirk. Mirth looked unsettling on his features. “Who knows, perhaps one day you’ll manage to find each other again.”

Those words settled, and your tense chest finally let out a breath you hadn’t realized you had been holding. At least the rules were finally stated outright.

A small consolation. This was a nightmare, the danger Kurapika had nearly broken you in his desire to protect you from. For the first time, you understood the reasoning behind the extreme measures, even if you scorned them at the same time. Chrollo said he’d allow you to live, but that was a lie. No matter how it all played out, your death was ensured.

Perhaps it had only been a matter of time, a clock ticking since the day the Phantom Troupe slaughtered everyone you loved. Even you… Even Kurapika… Your lives had ended that day, too. Maybe you should have been grateful for what you had been given, all the while living on borrowed time.

“Kurapika, don’t!” you cried before you could think too hard about it, pushing to stand and lurch towards Chrollo to get the message across the line. If your death was inevitable anyway, why shouldn’t Kurapika carry out his plan? This was a perfect opportunity, if he could disregard your life in the process. “They-”

Feitan didn’t hesitate to react to your movements, appearing in front of you and driving his fist into your stomach with a callous effectiveness and a hiss at you to remain quiet.

Whatever you had been about to say cut off with an ugly grunt, a noise that hardly sounded like it could have come from you. Something guttural, garbling an attempt at a cry of pain as all of the air in your lungs was driven out of your body. Even without air, your body managed a wet, hacking cough, spraying little splatters of blood from your throat.

A thump followed soon after as you fell to your knees, vision flashing black and mouth gaping like a fish out of water. The pain was more intense than you would have believed possible for such a mundane blow, making you double over as your mind screamed that something had to have been broken inside of you to create such an awful agony. Bloody spittle dripped from your lips and onto the floor, the image of it swimming in front of your eyes before your forehead fell flat against the wood.

On either side of your head, your hands unconsciously clenched and flexed, hitting against the floor lightly as you tried to get a grip on yourself.

Pain wasn’t so all-consuming that you missed the sound of Kurapika responding on the other end of the phone, his voice raised with anger. You could hardly hear him, let alone make out the words in your wavering state, but you could read the tone easily.

The thought was a bleary distraction, but you could almost imagine him now, jaw clenched in an attempt to bottle his fury as he considered any way to manipulate the situation. To find a way to turn it in his favor.

A good thought, one that lent you a scrap of strength enough to raise your eyes from your pathetic position, although your swimming scope of vision only allowed a limited view of the toes of Chrollo’s boots. The way you had fallen spoke of subservience to him, kneeling at his feet with your head bowed.

Kurapika would hate that. He would tell you to get up, to keep fighting.  

But you weren’t as strong as he was.

The truth was that even if you weren’t incapacitated, unable to breathe and reeling in pain and nausea, you wouldn’t have been able to wage any kind of war with these people. All it took was one hit to render you nearly useless, it was any wonder you had survived on your own all those years.

Still, you should have tried again to tell Kurapika to act  _now_. You needed to insist that he continue on his assault now that the Spider was weakened and separated, and obviously fearful of him. If he could accept your death as a fact, he would be in reach of the revenge he’d been striving towards for so long. Whatever other terrible things you’d been to Kurapika, whatever destruction and pain you had inadvertently caused, you could also be his martyr.

Although, a part of your mind questioned, were you really that selfless?

Shouldn’t you have been able to ignore the pain in the hopes of reaching Kurapika with that oh-so noble wish? If you were truthful, you would have acknowledged that another part of you wanted nothing more than to act on the pathetic desire of selfishness and beg that he save you from these monsters and this terrible, all-consuming pain.

As always with Kurapika, even in these very worst of circumstances, you were left tied up in confused knots of conflicting thoughts and feelings.  And pain. Always, always pain.

Ultimately, your confliction was rendered null. Neither sentiment could manage to make their way out of your gaping, gasping mouth as you finally found the strength to get your arms braced beneath you, raising your head to look up with streaming eyes to see Chrollo’s lips quirk upwards. You had missed a piece of their conversation, you realized, while caught up in your confusing turmoil and pain.  

Chrollo’s gray eyes shone with victory.

“You misunderstand, this is not a negotiation. I have told you my terms, you can do with them as you wish,” he said into the phone.

Kurapika replied on the other end, prompting Chrollo to laugh softly. It was a nice, pleasant sound. You hated it. With teary eyes and the taste of blood on your dry lips lips, each of your too-quick heartbeats reminding you of the pain in your gut, you scowled up at him.

“Maybe. It does seem like a waste, however.” Chrollo’s eyes were focused intently on you, studying your weak glower with an expression of slight amusement. “I had nearly forgotten, but the Scarlet Eyes are even more striking when they’re burning with life.”

You hadn’t even thought about the fact that your eyes would be completely crimson, painted in the dramatic hue in accordance with your extreme emotional state and hate. At the reminder, yours widened, then narrowed in fresh anger.

Kurapika, you had to tell him to act. He had a chance if he could just realize that your life was forfeit anyway. You had to stall, you had to-

A foot landed between your shoulder blades, knocking you back down before you could scramble to your feet. Your chin hit the floor, the sudden stomp rattling you anew as your head flashed with a fresh split of pain.

“Stay down,” Feitan demanded quietly from above, disgust and utter disdain in the sound of his voice, shown clearly in the heel digging painfully into your back.

Chrollo, reduced once again to your limited view of his boots, didn’t seem to care about your pathetic attempt to lunge at him, turning from you to face the window once more.

Dismissing you as a threat, or even as someone worth his consideration.

“As I said, there’s no reason for us to remain in the city.” There was a brusque edge to Chrollo’s words, restating the purpose of the call. He spoke as an absolute, nearing the end of the conversation with the confidence that he would get his way. “If you wish to keep her alive, you will make no further attempts to pursue or otherwise engage us.”

Finality rung clearly in his low tone.

Your voice was weak, crushed twice-fold and muffled from the jarring way you had been slammed against the ground.  _You_  were weak, pathetically so, your arm reaching out for a man who was miles and miles away, a man who was partially responsible for all of this. His name came from your lips without any thought of your own, drawn up as a last wish of need.

“Kurapika-”

But the call was over, the little tone indicating as such.

Feitan removed his foot from your pinning your back, relieving the pressure he’d be so cruelly subjecting you to. Air didn’t taste sweet when you drew in a painful breath, and your only movement was to let your reaching hand fall dead to the floor. Limply laying in the very spot you had shared your first kiss.

Now it was your last kiss, too.

Your stomach and ribs rankled with a sharp throb from being hit, your chin bleeding and head aching, each of your shallow breaths pushing against the blooming bruises underneath your shirt. It had been awhile since you’d wound up like this. Not just the wounds, because you were sure you could weather them. No, beneath all of the surface level hurt, you felt a terrible emptiness. Nestled deep into your very soul was the hollow and piercing ache of grief. You’d nearly forgotten you could feel such a thing, having been overwhelmed by so many other feelings after meeting Kurapika.

And now…

You couldn’t allow yourself to dwell on it. You had to get up, you had to be strong. There still had to be a way to fix this. Firm with that resolution, you sat up.

Which sent you into a hacking coughing fit. The Spiders ignored you, save for a harsh glare from Feitan as he pulled something out from his robe-like overcoat. Rope. Taking advantage of your weakness, still struggling for wheezing breaths of air, he tied your arms together with an expertly strong knot. By the time you felt mostly clear, your arms were bound tightly behind your back.

“Danchou…” Machi began, her voice almost hesitant from what you could hear between your valiant attempts to stifle yourself and struggle, not that it mattered to the unyielding rope. “Nobu won’t be happy with this.”  

Chrollo turned to her, completely composed. “Nobunaga will listen to reason. This is the best course of action.”

“He’ll demand to kill her,” Machi said, “Or at least have her tortured. She won’t survive a week.”

Chrollo’s contemplative eyes flicked down to you, eyeing up the bindings but saying nothing for a second.

“Our only priority for the moment is getting out of the city.”

“So we’re not killing her?” the dark haired woman asked, sounding confused.

“No,” Chrollo said, absolute authority in his tone, “The chain user won’t make a move if he believes she’s still alive… Besides, finding her shows that the fortunes can be changed, I can no longer believe that it’s in our best interest to remain here.”

He didn’t spare you another glance, breezing past you with his coat flaring behind him. “The others are still in the city and hideout. We can arrange transportation from there. Remain in pairs, just in case.”

“What about her?” Feitan asked.

“She’ll stay with me for now. If-”

“No,” you interrupted, your voice husky. Lacking strength. You were trembling and unsteady, not sure how to get to your feet with your arms pulled behind your back, but you objected. What else could you do? “No.” Leaning forward, you got the momentum up to get to your knees. “I won’t go with you.” It was stupid. Beyond stupid, really. Sheer lunacy to believe you could deny people like this in any way.

Indeed, Chrollo looked surprised when he looked over his shoulder at you.

“If you’re gonna kill me anyway, just… Just do it now, but I won’t… I won’t go with you.”

Funny that you’d wish for escape for so long, but deny it the minute it was offered.

Funny, but in a way that made you want to vomit.

“Feitan, Shizuku, go to the hideout to prepare for departure. Machi, go out and keep a lookout for a moment,” Chrollo ordered. Dismissive of them, while focused entirely on you.

It made your stomach drop, oddly enough. You’d spoken such a brave game, but the idea that this man was about to kill you was utterly terrifying. It seemed like you’d die on your knees, too.

“The chain user will want proof of life. As long as he knows she’s alive, he won’t make a move if it puts her at risk.”

“Got it,” Feitan said, the words echoed by Shizuku and finally by Machi. You hadn’t bothered to look much at it, but the door was broken beyond use, the locks busted and system unarmed. The three left through it without any further complaint, although Matchi’s blue eyes did cast a final glare at you before disappearing.

Leaving you only with Chrollo.

“Were the two of you lovers?” he asked casually, “The chain user, I mean.”

Lovers.

Hearing that word now of all times hurt. It pained you that Chrollo would dismiss every conflicting thing you felt for Kurapika with a single term. The expression your emotional response brought to your face must have been telling, because Chrollo nodded, satisfied with that as an answer. Your stomach twisted.

“I thought that might be the case. You’re incredibly sensitive about him. From his reaction, I’m sure he feels the same.”

All you could do was force a glare up at him, force your hatred to cover the hollow ache, the piercing needles in your heart.

“I… I hate you,” you told Chrollo, “Just kill me, you’re… You’re a murderer, isn’t that what your kind does?” you asked, trying again for the strength to provoke him. Pushing for a death you weren’t entirely certain you wanted.

“No,” Chrollo replied, unruffled, “The chain user is a murderer. The Spider are all thieves.”

Fresh anger welled up, hot and red. A hereditary trait. You badly wanted to get to your feet, but you could hardly balance like this on your knees, so you resigned to it, asking in a hoarse half-shout, “You think killing a horrible criminal is the same as slaughtering innocent women and children?”

“No,” Chrollo said calmly, “I’m stating the facts.”

The facts. Was he just saying that, or was it what he truly believed?

“You’re wrong,” you said. He had to be wrong. You’d feared it before, but Kurapika wasn’t a murderer. You couldn’t believe that.

For some reason, your denial made Chrollo smile (a truly unnerving expression), but he said nothing. Instead, he made his way towards you, reaching down to pull you up by your elbow, and forcing you to half stumble to your feet. The sudden movement made your head spin, making you rely on him to hold you up as you fought off the dizziness.

“I’m not wrong,” Chrollo said, his voice uncomfortably close to your ear, “I can see the doubt in your eyes.”

He didn’t let you go. He wasn’t letting you go.

“What are you doing?” your voice was weak, face hot as you awkwardly struggled away from Chrollo. Being held like this led your mind down a specific path, but there was no way. Not possibly. Less importantly, it was frightfully embarrassing. “Let.. Let me go!” A bit more strength filled those words, but Chrollo didn’t seem concerned in the slightest, not at all affected by the embrace or your wimpy attempts to get out of it.

You, on the other hand, couldn’t help but squirm, although all that did was push you further against Chrollo. Warm. Muscular. Unyielding. Being touched was alien to you, being held even worse. Your stomach pounded with nerves, twisting and pulsing, your diaphragm moving in an uneven pattern with your shallow breathing.    

“He knows that one of mine has an ability to create fakes. If I only send him pictures, he might not believe that you’re truly alive. Besides, he knows my face. That should suffice as proof.”

Chrollo, you realized, was holding your phone, opening the camera to take a video.

With a video, and a technically unlimited amount of takes, you weren’t sure there was anything you could do. It wasn’t as if you could say you were dead, or that you would die anyway, Chrollo would just delete those takes.

“Tell him that you’re alive, and that he shouldn’t follow us,” Chrollo ordered, an unspoken threat in the words. You swallowed hard as he raised the phone, mind whirling with questions that you couldn’t think of an answer for.

Weak. You were so weak. Looking up at the phone screen displayed that clearly, when you were confronted with the sight of yourself. Ragged, with messy hair and an unhealthy pallor, slightly bloodshot eyes with red creeping into the iris, held close enough to Chrollo that anyone would get a strange idea.

He pressed record.

“Kurapika…” you said, staring at the camera rather than the screen, “I’m.. I’m alive. You shouldn’t… Shouldn’t follow us.”

“It’s fortunate that you imprisoned her,” Chrollo added, his voice holding a trace tone of smugness, “If you hadn’t, I’m sure we wouldn’t have been able to find her.”

You tensed up. That was cruel. His words were terribly cruel. Yet, they were true, and that only made it worse, because you were furious with the only person in the world you loved, because you were terrified and unsure if living or dying scared you more, because this  _was_   _his fault_.

“Kurapika…” you said in defense, arguing against yourself rather than Chrollo as you struggled harder, “It’s okay, it’s not.. Not your-”

Chrollo’s hand closed around your jaw, pulling your face to the side. Gray eyes met yours. Then, just like that, he kissed you. It was mechanical, lacking passion or desire or anything other than his lips on yours, his strength keeping you still.

Just as quickly, he pulled away, looking directly at the camera while you reeled.

“I wonder how long her loyalty will keep. The sooner we’ve scattered without being followed, the sooner I’ll release her,” he said. His thumb pressed the red button, ending the recording. Chrollo’s smirk dropped, his face becoming empty as he released you.

“Don’t send that!” You tried to say as an order, but the words came as more of a plea and your arms only chafed when you pulled at them to stop him.

“I already did,” Chrollo said, shutting off and dropping your phone with smoothly careless movements. It clattered to the floor, and your heart dropped as well, falling with a sickening weight into your gut. “Let’s go,” he told you, holding out an arm for you to go first.

Looking at Chrollo, you expected to find… Something, but there was no evidence of the kiss that still tingled on your lips in the way he regarded you. Staring into those cold gray eyes, the same as the clouds outside, all you felt was empty. It was like a switch had been flipped.

Maybe you could have argued, or tried again to provoke him into killing you, but you finally understood that it wouldn’t have mattered. To Chrollo, you were as insignificant as any object he’d stolen. More, maybe. Your shoulders slumped in defeat, your feet shuffling you forward to do as he said because what  _else_  could you do?

Before rounding the corner out the door you’d longed to escape from, unhappily transitioning your life from prisoner to hostage, you looked at the window for a last time. To think you’d hated that window, and what it symbolized as your disconnect from people, from freedom.

Fat drops of water hit the glass, trailing down like tears. 

It was raining, but, for a moment, you could imagine a dark sky. A night with a new moon.

Lighting crashed, thunder rolling soon after, and then the window was gone from your sight. 


End file.
